Defamation, Dissent, and Censorship in the Holy Roman Empire, Ca

"So That The Common Man May See What Kind of Tree Bears Such Harmful Fruit": Defamation, Dissent, and Censorship In The Holy Roman Empire, ca. 1555-1648

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Authors Buehler, Paul

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“SO THAT THE COMMON MAN MAY SEE WHAT KIND OF TREE BEARS SUCH HARMFUL FRUIT”: DEFAMATION, DISSENT, AND CENSORSHIP IN THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, CA. 1555-1648

PAUL BUEHLER

______

A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

In the Graduate College

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

2015

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE

As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Paul Buehler, titled “So That The Common Man May See What Kind Of Tree Bears Such Harmful Fruit”: Defamation, Dissent, And Censorship In The Holy Roman Empire, ca. 1555-1648, and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

______Date: (02 September 2015) Susan C. Karant-Nunn

______Date: (02 September 2015) Ute Lotz-Heumann

______Date: (02 September 2015) Paul Milliman

Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College.

I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement.

______Date: (02 September 2015) Dissertation Director: Susan C. Karant-Nunn

______Date: (02 September 2015) Dissertation Director: Ute Lotz-Heumann

STATEMENT BY AUTHOR

This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library.

Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author.

SIGNED: Paul Buehler

Acknowledgments

This work would have been impossible without the generous support of many people. I must insist that whatever in this study might be good or valuable, at this moment or in the future, is a credit to the people, organizations, and institutions I am about to name (and some I have certainly missed).

This work’s errors, inaccuracies, and omissions are all mine.

To my advisors and doctoral committee members, Drs. Susan Karant-Nunn, Ute Lotz-

Heumann, and Paul Milliman, I express my deepest gratitude for your patience and expert guidance.

I would never have conceived of this work, much less completed it, without your enduring support and encouragement.

Research would not have been possible without the financial and logistical support of the

Austrian-American Educational Commission (Fulbright) and the Austrian Agency for International

Cooperation in Education and Research (OeAD). For the academic year 2011-2012, these agencies graciously gave me the means to work as a research scholar in Vienna, the most halcyon of settings for such an endeavor. I have rarely enjoyed such contentment. At the Haus-, Hof und Staatsarchiv, where I passed many happy hours laying the foundations for this dissertation, I give my deepest thanks to the archive’s director, Mag. Thomas Just. Deserving of praise, too, are the archivists and staff, who greeted me warmly every day and answered my every question and query knowledgeably.

Certainly not least among those deserving recognition are my friends and colleagues at the

University of Arizona, the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies, and other academic institutions in the United States Europe. Their insight and encouragement were indispensable for the (now many) years it has taken to complete this work.

To my family, there are many more thanks than there are words to express them. Not least to my wife, Marne, who happens to be my best friend and most inspiring muse. I am very lucky.

For Marne.

Table of Contents

Introduction 9

The Case for Imperial Censorship 9

Primary Sources 17

Dramatis Personae 21

Organization 26

Chapter One: Libel in Imperial Censorship Laws, ca. 1521-1577 31

Imperial Libel Law from the Edict of Worms to the Augsburg Interim, ca. 1521-1548 32

Libel Law from the Religious Peace of Augsburg to the New Police Ordinance, ca. 1555-1570 42

Chapter Two: The Danger of Libel 55

Libel and Popular (Religious) Violence 56

Danger in Context: Where and When 64

In Consideration of the Victim 75

Chapter Three: The Nature of Libel 101

Malice, Truth, and Falsity 102

“So that the Common Man Can See What Sort of Tree Bears such Harmful Fruit” 104

Pseudonymous and Anonymous Texts 112

Libel as a Variety of Scholarship 119

Libel and the Limits of Confessionalization 131

Chapter Four: The Punishment of Libel 136

Punishing the Body: Arrest and Imprisonment 137

Discursus: Punishment of the Body and the Violence of the State Reconsidered 156

Material Punishments: Fines, Confiscation, and Suspension of the Trade 161

Tracing Outcomes 174 7

Chapter Five: The Administration and Enforcement of Imperial Censorship 182

Pre-Publication Censorship 182

Strategies for Enforceable Accountability 185

Imperial Print Privileges 189

Local Administration and Enforcement of Imperial Censorship Provisions 194

The Frankfurt Printers’ Ordinance of 1598 209

Chapter Six: The Imperial Book Commission, ca. 1579-1650 219

The Establishment of the Imperial Book Commission 220

Early Procedures 223

Conflicts with Bookmen: Resistance to Exemplars 231

Confessionalism and Imperial Print Privileges 240

Pre-Publication Censorship in Practice 242

Confessionalism and the Imperial Book Commission under Valentin Leucht 247

The Apostolic Book Commission: Confessional and Political Loyalties Collide 266

Conclusion 287

Bibliography 297

Primary Sources 297

Secondary and Edited Sources 300 8

Abstract For more than thirty years, historians of the Holy Roman Empire have registered little discernible interest in imperial censorship during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As historical scholarship has evolved in its understanding of the Holy Roman Empire during this period, it has lagged behind in its appreciation for how imperial authorities controlled expression and regulated the book trade. Old assumptions about imperial censorship have been slow to wither and decay even though assumptions about the Empire have been reexamined and revised. Where a growing appreciation for the Empire’s complexities spurred interest in territorial and civic censorship, a corresponding interest in imperial censorship has not developed. Interestingly, the two – old assumptions and modern revisionist histories – have conspired to moot studies of the imperial government, its policies, and its procedures, which has meant that the significance of imperial censorship in the Empire has been largely overlooked. Moreover, historians’ attention to local controls and regulations has inspired a more nuanced approach to censorship than had previously prevailed, leading to a general reassessment of how censorship influenced the circulation and reception of ideas in both positive and negative ways. Imperial censorship has failed to register its mark in this regard as well. Using a combination of imperial censorship legislation, archival documents, and printed primary sources, this dissertation charts imperial censorship during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as both a concept and a practice. Unable to enforce religious uniformity in the Empire after the Reformation’s successful establishment in the 1520s, imperial legislation came to rely on libel, rather than heresy, as the formal basis for its censorship policies.

Libel was an ambiguous category of illicit expression, the interpretation of which depended a great deal on the contingencies of context and the subjective preferences of enforcers. This affected how imperial and local authorities, respectively, interacted on matters of censorship, requiring more negotiation and cooperation than has heretofore been appreciated. 9

Introduction

The Case for Imperial Censorship

This dissertation examines censorship in the Holy Roman Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. More specifically, it offers a closer look at how censorship operated at the imperial level from the Diet of Worms in 1521 through the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War in

1648. It assesses how historical contingency, legal ambiguity, interpretative subjectivity, and the

Empire’s political organization combined to complicate the administration and enforcement of the law. It makes two distinct but closely related observations. First, proscriptions of libel anchored early modern imperial censorship legislation and procedure. Following the breakdown of religious uniformity in the Empire, imperial censorship law relied heavily on libel as a means for regulating expression in lieu of heresy, which Evangelicals would not abide. Libel became the central pillar of imperial censorship legislation, as it was clear that Evangelical princes and magistrates would not – or could not – enforce the Edict of Worms; libel presented an alternative category sufficiently neutral to assuage otherwise recalcitrant Evangelicals. Second, the ban on libel spearheaded a systematic effort by imperial authorities to expand the regulation of the book trade, to improve the administration and enforcement of imperial censorship law, and extend imperial influence, all with mixed results. In the final assessment, imperial censorship was responsive to historical conditions and the subjectivities of its enforcers, who interpreted imperial laws according to a matrix of overlapping (and sometimes competing) biases and official responsibilities, as well as the exigencies of the historical moment.

Historians of early modern Germany have not attempted a study of this scope. As risky as it is to reduce previous scholarship to generalities, three patterns nevertheless emerge in the pertinent historiography for imperial censorship. First, there are broadly focused studies tracing the development of imperial censorship laws and structures over time. Admittedly, the use of the plural 10

“studies” is misleading because, to my knowledge, there is only a single work devoted to imperial censorship in the early modern period, Ulrich Eisenhardt’s Die kaiserliche Aufsicht über Buchdruck,

Buchhandel und Presse im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation (1496-1806), published in 1970.1

Eisenhardt’s serviceable monograph has faithfully shadowed discussions of imperial censorship wherever it has appeared in subsequent historical monographs, attesting to its continued usefulness to historians.2 As a resource for understanding the contours of imperial censorship in the early modern period, Die kaiserliche Aufsicht’s main weakness is that it undertakes a broad survey of imperial censorship laws without pausing to assess their implementation. This is expected considering that Eisenhardt covered more than three centuries’ worth of sources for imperial censorship law – recesses, ordinances, mandates, edicts, patents, and imperial election capitulations – in one-hundred fifty two breathless pages.3 His focus on the longue durée on imperial censorship law was admirable, but censorship was more than a legal program. Eisenhardt’s focus on the structural aspects of imperial censorship came at the expense of descriptive analyses of the people, events, and conditions relevant to imperial censorship as a practice. The problem, in other words, is that readers never have the opportunity to see imperial censorship at work.4

1 Ulrich Eisenhardt, Die kaiserliche Aufsicht über Buchdruck, Buchhandel und Presse im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation (1496-1806). Eine Beitrag zur Geschichte der Bücher- und Pressenzensur (Karlsruhe: Verlag C. F. Müller, 1970).

2 This is true of two recent English-language monographs on censorship in the Empire, which touch on imperial censorship incidentally: Allyson F. Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order in Reformation Germany, 1517-1648: 'Printed Poison & Evil Talk' (Surrey and Burlington: Ashgate, 2012). Ian MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion: The Learned Book in the Age of Confessions, 1560-1630 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2012).

3 Eisenhardt, Die kaiserliche Aufsicht, 24-48.

4 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 16. Creasman rightfully notes that Eisenhardt “regards imperial censorship as an effective instrument of control, able to command respect within the states of the Empire despite their confessional differences and often conflicting political ambitions. The evidence of widespread confessional polemic and political posturing among the estates suggests that Eisenhardt may, in some respects, be overstating the case for the effectiveness of imperial control; it is difficult to evaluate his conclusions, however, because he devotes little attention to how the imperial law was actually carried out.”

Second, there are histories of imperial censorship trending in the opposite direction. Studies of this type tend to give a thorough accounting of some aspect of imperial censorship or another, usually in terms of its personnel and practices. Such efforts are also rare. Wolfgang Brückner, whose interests in imperial censorship revolved around the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt am Main, is the most prominent historian in this regard. The Imperial Book Commission represents the lone opportunity for a sustained case study of imperial censorship in practice, since it was the only imperial institution created during the early modern period specifically to oversee a corner of the Empire’s print trade. Brückner explored the Commission as it matured under the guidance of its most infamous leader, Valentin Leucht, during the height of the confessional age. In two studies, one concerning the work of the Commission and the other a long-form biographical essay on

Leucht, Brückner argued that the Commission was a quintessential vehicle for implementing the

Catholic Counter-Reformation in the Empire and that Leucht was its able driver.5 As the sole imperial institution for the policing of the book trade, Brückner represents the Commission’s personnel as imperial censorship personified. This approach has merit to the extent that readers gain a sense of the contingent and subjective nature of censorship enforcement. In Brückner’s studies, readers profit from an impression of censorship “on the ground,” watching as imperial censors interacted with bookmen at Frankfurt’s book fairs and with local authorities in the city itself.

This is useful not only because, even today, views of censors at work at rare, but also because readers gain a sense of the mutual confessional biases at work in Frankfurt between local authorities, foreign bookmen, and imperial censors.

5 Wolfgang Brückner, “Der kaiserliche Bücherkommissar Valentin Leucht. Leben und literarisches Werk,” in Archiv für des Buchwesens 3 (1960): 97-180; Wolfgang Brückner, “Die Gegenreformation im politischen Kampf um die Frankfurter Buchmessen. Die kaiserliche Zensur zwischen 1567 und 1619,” in Archiv für Frankfurts Geschichte und Kunst 48 (1962): 67- 86.

That Brückner’s studies remain central to discussions of the Commission and its activities testifies to their quality, and form an important touchstone for this dissertation as well, especially in the fifth and sixth chapters.6 The drawback to this approach is that it cannot resist the tendency to unmoor the Commission from its duties and obligations vis-à-vis imperial law, other imperial institutions, and the currents of imperial politics. Brückner implicitly reduces the exercise of imperial censorship almost entirely to the play of personalities in their immediate surroundings, without sufficient reference to external structures buttressing and constraining their activities.

Without due understanding of the Empire’s laws and a co-requisite discussion of their effects on the people who administered and enforced them, one is left the impression that Leucht specifically, and the Commission as a whole, was a highly confessionalized leviathan running roughshod over

Frankfurt and its book market. This matters because other less erudite studies of the Commission have drawn similar conclusions, meaning that all one sees of the Imperial Book Commission is its unchecked confessional bias, which is supposed to have caused the decline of the Frankfurt book fairs.7

Third, imperial censorship makes incidental appearances in monographs about other phenomena relevant to the functioning of the book trade and censorship in other parts of the

Empire. There is a sizeable number of monographs in German devoted to local and regional

6 Creasman, MacLean, and Eisenhardt each rely on Brückner’s essays at various and repeated points.

7 There is not much secondary literature devoted to the Imperial Book Commission apart from Brückner’s essasys. Of the existing literature, however, the confessional bias of the Catholic imperial commissioners has been a major theme. For lesser studies on the topic see the following: The editor’s remarks in Henri Estienne, The Frankfort Book Fair: The Francofordiense Emporium of Henri Estienne, translated and edited by James Westfall Thompson (Burt Franklin: New York, 1968), 99-123; Mathilde Rovelstad, “The Frankfurt Book Fair,” in Journal of Library History, Philosophy and Comparative Librarianship 8 (1973): 113-123; Colin Clair, A History of European Printing (London, New York, San Francisco: Academic Press, 1976), 221-222.

censorship in the Empire, for both cities and the territorial states.8 When imperial censorship comes up in these studies, the authors tend to echo older studies devoted to imperial censorship law or the

Imperial Book Commission; i.e. Eisenhardt and Brückner respectively. These studies have their own merits and demerits with respect to their designated subject, of course, but one of the unfortunate tendencies of these “incidental” accounts of imperial censorship is how uneven the treatment is because it is presented in an unbalanced perspective. In other words, there is little discernible sympathy for imperial censorship in these narratives, as they come from the perspectives of those whom it encumbered and were not therefore sympathetic to it themselves. In Allyson Creasman’s informative study of censorship in Germany during the long Reformation, for example, the analysis of imperial censorship’s enforcement is unbalanced and incomplete in this way. In her treatment of

Theodor Thumm, whose case receives considerable attention in this dissertation, she offers readers only the view of Thumm’s supporters, and does not attempt to reconstruct the perspective of imperial authorities pursuing the case. Creasman (unintentionally) skews her picture favorably toward Lutheran interpretations of imperial motives during imperial prosecution of Thumm’s case.9

8 Otto Zaretsky, Der ertse Kölner Zensurprozess. Ein Beitrag zur Kölner Geschichte und Inkunabelkunde (Cologne: Verlag der M. Du Mont-Schauberg’schen Buchhandlung, 1906); Viktor Muckel, "Die Entwicklung der Zensur in Köln" (PhD diss., University of Cologne, 1931); Arnd Müller, “Zensurpolitik der Reichsstadt Nürnberg,” in Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 49 (1959): 66-170; Rüdiger Busch, Die Aufsicht über das Bücher- und Pressewesen in den Rheinbundstaaten Berg, Westphalen, und Frankfurt (Karlsruhe: Verlag C.F. Müller, 1970); Hilger Freund, Die Bücher- und Pressenzensur im Kurfürstentum Mainz von 1486-1797 (Karlsruhe: Verlag F.C. Müller, 1971); Helmut Neumann, Staatliche Bücherzensur und Aufsicht in Bayern von der Reformation bis zum Ausgang des 17. Jahrhunderts (Heidelberg: C.F. Müller Juristischer Verlag, 1977); Thomas Sirges and Ingeborg Müller, Zensur in Marburg, 1538-1832: Eine lokalgeschichtliche Studie zum Bücher- und Pressewesen (Marburg: Presseamt der Stadt, 1984); Volker Büchler, “Die Zensur im frühneuzeitlichen Augsburg, 1515-1806,” in Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereins für Schwaben 84 (1991): 69-128; Wolfgang Wüst, Censur als Stütze von Staat und Kirche in der Frühmoderne: Augsburg, Bayern, Kurmainz und Württemberg in Vergleich (Munich: Verlag Ernst Vögel, 1998); Wolfgang Wüst, “Konfessionalisierung und Censur in oberdeutschen Reichsstädten,” in Konfessionalisierung und Region, Peer Frieβ and Rolf Kieβling eds. (Constance: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1999); Stephan Fitos, Zensur als Miβerfolg; Die Verbreitung indizierter deutscher Druckschriften in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2000); Hans-Peter Hasse, Zensur theologischer Bücher in Kursachsen im Konfessionallen Zeitalter. Studien zur kursächsischen Literatur- und Religionspolitik in den Jahren 1569 bis 1575 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlasanstalt, 2000).

9 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 114-119.

Ian MacLean’s monograph on the scholarly book trade in the Empire offers a terse portrait of the

Imperial Book Commission. In his brief treatment, imperial censorship was an unwanted intrusion into the affairs of the Frankfurt city council and the business interests of Frankfurt’s book trade.10

Although MacLean writes about the widespread underhandedness of the scholarly print trade, the need to regulate the trade, and the difficulties of doing so, he shunts imperial censorship aside as a tedious and unwelcome distraction. This may have been true in a limited way, witnessed solely from the perspectives of the bookmen MacLean writes about, who generally regarded all censorship with suspicion. Yet it is worth remembering that bookmen clung to censorship’s protections when it was convenient to do so.

Historiography affords a view of imperial censorship that is wide of the mark in one respect or another; its presentation is too broad, too narrow, or too incidental to capture the whole picture.

“It is,” as one historian perceptively observed of historiographical trends related to another topic but equally applicable here, “the perennial question of the forest and the trees, the figure and the ground; in the end both must be seen.”11 This dissertation moves in that direction, arguing that imperial censorship was significant for the imperial book trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as both a program and a practice. This significance was not uniformly negative, in the sense that it was only restrictive and repressive. In many ways, this study’s attempt to describe imperial censorship holistically has been shaped by the work of Robert Darnton. In his 1982 essay

“What is the History of Books?” Darnton observed, “printed books generally pass through roughly

10 MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 11; 137-138.

11 Susan C. Karant-Nunn, Zwickau in Transition, 1500-1547: The Reformation as an Agent of Change (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1987), 3.

the same life cycle.”12 “It could be described,” he continued, “as a communications circuit that runs from the author to the publisher, the printer, shipper, the bookseller, and the reader.”13 The various scholarly fields and approaches pursuing books as their objects of study, he warned, needed “some holistic view of books as a means of communication […] if book history is to avoid being fragmented into esoteric specializations, cut off from each other by arcane techniques and mutual misunderstanding.”14 He essayed a programmatic breakdown of what a holistic approach would entail. Darnton suggested that each phase in the circuit should be shown in relation to, first, “other activities that a given person has underway at a given point in the same circuit,” second, “other persons at the same point in other circuits,” third, “other persons at other points in the same circuit,” and, finally, “other elements in society.”15

Darnton’s essay has had a salutary effect on the study of the production, distribution, and reception of printed books. Darnton, of course, was responding to an already established interest in the history of books. He sought to rally the diverse interests and fields attached to the study of books – cultural history, intellectual history, social history, literary studies, and bibliography – under a single banner, the History of Books. This call contributed to the eventual formation of a professional association in 1991, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing

(SHARP), and its own dedicated and well-received journal, Book History.16 Yet, for all that the history of books has contributed to contemporary understandings of authors, printers, publishers,

12 Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books?,” in Daedalus 111 (1982): 65-83; here 67.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Cyndia Susan Clegg, “History of the Book: An Undisciplined Discipline?,” in Renaissance Quarterly 54 (2001): 221-245; here 222-223.

booksellers, and readers in early modern Europe, a lacuna remains in the systematic application of this methodology to censorship. While scholars have treated censorship in the early modern period

(and elsewhere) variously as a legal category or a subject of intellectual ruminations, until recently there was very little attention paid to censorship as a practice immediately relevant to, and fully integrated into, the history of books. In that regard, Darnton has answered his own call with his most recent monograph, which focuses on the practice of censorship through a comparative overview of censors’ activities in different times and different places.17

Sadly, few scholars have bothered running the gauntlet Darnton laid down, especially with regard to the Holy Roman Empire during the confessional age. This dissertation represents an initial sortie aimed at laying the groundwork for a more robust, fully integrated, and comparative study of the topic in the future. Looking at censorship at the imperial level, it seeks a happy medium between overly broad and obsessively narrow in an effort to delineate the whole. The greater share traces the workings of imperial censorship, tying it to the operations of local authorities and other competing censorial authorities where possible and necessary, and linking censorial concerns to the world of authors, printers, and booksellers. It aims to bridge the existing historiographical gap by providing a study of imperial censorship, its impact as well as its outcomes, using Darnton’s holistic approach. Such an approach reveals the shape of imperial censorship and the work of censors, holding broader possibilities for application to censorship studies beyond the Holy Roman Empire and outside of the confessional age.

17 Robert Darnton, Censors at Work: How States Shaped Literature (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014). He makes case studies of eighteenth-century France, nineteenth-century British India, and twentieth-century East Germany.

Primary Sources

This dissertation draws on the resources available to the author during a research period highlighted by a stay in Vienna, Austria during the 2011-2012 academic year, made possible with support from the Fulbright Program, specifically the Austrian-American Educational Commission and the Austrian Agency for International Cooperation in Education and Research. Accordingly, the majority of this dissertation relies on archival documents housed in the Haus-, Hof- und

Staatsarchiv located in Vienna.18 They include trial records for libel cases, reports from the Imperial

Book Commission, as well as correspondence between imperial authorities and local princes and civic magistrates. The HHStA contains documents related to the Reichshofrat, or the Imperial Aulic

Council, which was one of two imperial courts operating simultaneously in the Empire, the other being the Reichskammergericht, or Imperial Chamber Court, located in Speyer.19 The Imperial Aulic

Council received reports from the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt, offered legal opinions on complaints from aggrieved parties throughout the Empire, drafted mandates and letters on behalf of the Emperor in consideration of alleged violations of the law, and directed others concerning issues of enforcement and administration. It was a relatively fixed point of reference for the adjudication of censorship disputes throughout the Empire, its proximity to imperial Habsburg and Catholic interests notwithstanding.20 Correspondence arrived from people in Frankfurt and other cities throughout the Empire who wanted to appeal – or circumvent – the decisions of local

18 The Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv is abbreviated hereafter in the text and the notes as HHStA.

19 The Reichshofrat is hereafter referred to in the text by its English translation (Imperial Aulic Council) and in the notes as RHR.

20 Scholarly opinions on contemporary perceptions of the Imperial Aulic Council’s neutrality, in light of its proximity to imperial interests and its dominance by Catholics, are mixed, but trend toward its passable impariality; see Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 55; Eisenhardt, Die kaiserliche Aufsicht, 113; and Stefan Ehrenpreis, Kaiserliche Gerichtsbarkeit und Konfessionskonflikt. Der Reichshofrat unter Rudolf II, 1576-1612 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006).

officials. The majority of sources come from this collection embedded in the archives under the designation Bücherkommission im Reich, although many of the sources in this collection were only tangentially related the activities of the Imperial Book Commission to which the titular classification refers.21 The other archival documents, related specifically to correspondence and requests from the

Imperial Book Commission to the Imperial Arch-Chancellor in Mainz, were filed under the designation Mainzer Erzkanzlerarchiv, references to which are comparatively few in this dissertation because the first collection ranges only from 1642-1647, which comes at the end of the period under consideration here.

Sources for imperial censorship law come mostly from imperial recesses and ordinances contained in an appendix to Friedrich Kapp’s monumental nineteenth-century book, Geschichte des

Deutschen Buchhandels.22 Coming as they do third- and perhaps even fourth-hand from other eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources, I have tried to exercise due diligence in confirming the documents’ dependability. I have not encountered any contradictions between my rendering of a document and another scholar’s reading of the same text, which suggests a reasonable degree of verisimilitude between disparate modern sources for imperial censorship law. Confidence in what I present here must be tempered by the admission that future versions of this study will have recourse to modern critical editions of the Reichsabschiede to ensure the accuracy of the documents and to

21 In the notes, Bücherkommission im Reich is abbreviated as BKR, for which there were two cartons, arranged more or less chronologically as 1 and 2; hence BKR1 and BKR2 in the citations.

22 Friedrich Kapp, Geschichte des deutchen Buchhandels (Leipzig: Verlag des Börsenvereins der Deutschen Buchhändler, 1886), 775-785. All of the imperial recesses cited in this dissertation can be found in chronological order in these ten pages in Kapp’s work. I have elected to maintain the titles, dates, and section numbers as they theoretically appear in all editions of the recesses for the sake of continuity and ease of comparison. Citations in the footnotes and my translations, of course, come from these pages in Kapp. Kapp appeared to have used a collection of censorship laws and ordinances previously assembled in 1844, J. A. Collman, Quellen Materialien und Commentar des gemein deutschen Preßrechts (Berlin: Wilhelm Besser, 1844), who in turn seemed to have assembled his collection and commentary from the eighteenth-century collection, Neue und Vollständige Sammlung der Reichsabschiede, 4. Vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1747).

situate the print regulations and censorship legislation into the imperial diets whence they came. As this dissertation strives not only to present a picture of imperial censorship and its workings, but also to integrate imperial censorship into the history of censorship in the Empire, such an approach is necessary. Although the current study moves in that direction at several places, more archival and documentary research is necessary before it can make any pretensions to comprehensiveness.

Imperial authorities in Vienna interacted with a variety of local authorities throughout the Empire, including those of Cologne, Strasbourg, Nuremberg, Tübingen, Frankfurt, Dillingen, Ingolstadt,

Kempten, and elsewhere. I have not had the opportunity to consult archival sources in these places.

In lieu of local archival materials, alternative or supplementary perspectives to those given by the imperial archives come from secondary materials where possible and necessary.

The connection between the Imperial Book Commission and Frankfurt makes it possible to glimpse Frankfurt’s own censorship activities alongside its interactions with imperial censorship.

Unfortunately, without access to materials in Frankfurt, and in the other places that communicated with Vienna about the regulation of the local book trade, the current work cannot present a fully two-sided view of affairs (imperial and local). In terms of measuring imperial censorship’s range of influence over the early modern book trade, the relationship between Vienna and Frankfurt is important to grasp. It will be necessary to invest time researching in Frankfurt in order to enhance time already spent in the archives in Vienna. As discussed in more detail below, the imperial government extended its reach over the book trade primarily through the issuance of imperial print privileges, which the Imperial Aulic Court granted (or rejected) in Vienna. The Imperial Book

Commission in Frankfurt was chiefly responsible for policing the trade of books claiming an imperial print privilege. Each place – Vienna and Frankfurt – has different kinds of sources revealing different perspectives of imperial censorship’s workings. The Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv possesses documents related to the consideration of privileges for certain books, including 20

applications from bookmen, letters of support, as well as justifications for acceptance or rejection.

It also has correspondence to and from the Imperial Book Commission, offering therefore the view of its activities assessed in this dissertation, which assumes the only analytical perspective these sources permit: how the commissioners wished to appear and justify themselves to their superiors in

Vienna. According to secondary sources, destruction sustained during the Second World War has deprived Frankfurt of sources relevant to the policing of imperial print privileges there.23 Other studies have suggested that there are sources in Frankfurt offering potentially useful commentaries on the Imperial Book Commission’s activities, at least by implication.24 I would like this study to be comparative someday, integrating imperial censorship into censorship patterns in the Empire as a whole and looking at how it functioned vis-à-vis censorship in other European countries. Yet a comparative study of censorship this is not and cannot be until the depths of imperial censorship have been sounded and relevant sources for a comparative study accessed and analyzed on their own terms.

Das Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts (VD17) has been a valuable resource for researching and writing this dissertation. At various points, it has been important to tie imperial censorship cases to the lives and careers of the individuals involved, charting polemical debates between warring theologians and tracing the publication records of printers accused of abetting libelers. The European library holdings available through the VD17 reflects the dizzying rate of digitization now taking place. Links to full text primary sources seemed

23 John L. Flood, review of Die kaiserlichen Druckprivilegien im Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv Wien. Verzeichnis der Akten vom Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ende des Deutschen Reichs (1806), edited by Hans-Joachim Koppitz, in The Library: The Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 10 (2009): 219-221; here 220.

24 Of the two most recent studies consulted for this dissertation, only MacLean has used archival materials in both Frankfurt and Vienna, while Creasman declined to visit Vienna for her research. Eisenhardt visited archives in both Frankfurt and Vienna, in addition to archives at the Vatican and Düsseldorf.

to appear almost daily as the dissertation came together. Of particular importance were the digital holdings of the Bavarian State Library in Munich and the Herzog August Bibliothek in

Wolfenbüttel, as well as university libraries from Erfurt to Augsburg, all of which permitted me to review books, treatises, and pamphlets relevant to my research. Unfortunately, one of the sources sorely needed for this dissertation was unavailable as a digitized version (the first edition of Georg

Zeämann’s Newer Wunderspiegel of 1624); extant copies held in European libraries were too brittle for scanning upon request.25

Dramatis Personae

Two accused libelers in particular had a more pronounced engagement with imperial censorship than others did, judging from the volume of archival material dedicated to their cases.

These two shall accordingly feature in this dissertation, representing the majority of close analysis in approximately half of the chapters below. Because we will meet them and discuss their cases at length at different points in this study, they need brief introductions here to allay the potential for confusion later. I introduce those individuals whose presence is discrete as necessary in the course of the text.

(1) Georg Zeämann (1580-1638) was a Lutheran theologian, professor, superintendent, and preacher. The records for his ordeal with imperial authorities are easily the most detailed and numerous of any I encountered in the HHStA for this period, spanning five years and totaling several hundred of folio pages. Born in Hornbach in the Rhenish-Palatinate south of Zweibrücken,

Zeämann trained in theology at Lauingen at the Gymnasium Palatinum, a center of Lutheran education

25 I am grateful to Professor Ute Lotz-Heumann for making inquiries on my behalf with several such libraries. While the Herzog-August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel holds a copy of the Newer Wunderspiegel, the institution was unprepared to digitize it because of its delicate condition. 22

patronized by Count Palatine Philipp Ludwig of Neuburg. He undertook his university education at

Wittenberg, beginning sometime before the beginning of the seventeenth century and concluding in

1603, at which point he returned to Lauingen to teach at the Gymnasium. Zeämann’s career as a theologian and educator blossomed in a milieu of renewed theological controversy facilitated by the stabilization of Evangelical self-identity, which the spread of the Counter-Reformation and the Jesuit

Order, as well as the encroachments of Calvinism, had urged.26 Zeämann’s theological timbre, as well as his penchant for controversy and polemic, echoed the preoccupations of his mentors, who were prominent representatives of early Lutheran Orthodoxy, “an era of experimentation and consolidation within German Lutheranism” that unfolded between the Formula of Concord (1577) and the Colloquy of Regensburg (1601).27 Two of his three mentors at Wittenberg, Aegidius

Hunnius and Leonhard Hutter, were highly regarded vanguards of Lutheran Orthodoxy as articulated by Concord and defended at Regensburg.28 Hunnius was one of the most visible participants at the Colloquy of Regensburg, debating Jesuits Adam Tanner and Jakob Gretser, who defended post-Tridentine Catholic perspectives on a number of theological points against Hunnius’ vision of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Zeämann was thus educated and intellectually nurtured in an agonistic environment rife with theological controversies.

26 Thomas A. Brady Jr., German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400-1650 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 266-268.

27 Michael J. Halvorson, Heinrich Heshusius and Confessional Polemic in Early Lutheran Orthodoxy (Farnham, Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 2.

28 Aegidius Hunnius presided over De Colloquio Pontificis Ineundo (Wittenberg: Helwig and Müller, 1601); Leonhard Hutter presided over Sadeel Elenchomenos Disputatio III (Wittenberg: Berger and Krafft, 1601); and David Runge presided over Dipsutatio Nona. Ex Symbolo Apostolico (Wittenberg: Helwig and Müller, 1601). David Runge was not as highly esteemed as Hutter and Hennius, with whom Polycarp Leyser is regarded as the third member of the early Lutheran Orthodoxy troika working in Wittenberg. There is no direct evidence in his publishing history that Zeämann worked with Leyser as closely as he had with the others. 23

Sometime in 1617, following Count Palatine Wolfgang Wilhelm’s conversion to Catholicism and the Catholicization of his hereditary lands, Zeämann moved to Lutheran Kempten, where he served as city preacher until 1630. It was in Kempten that Zeämann’s difficulties with imperial authorities unfolded. In 1625, Jesuit observers wrote to the Imperial Aulic Council to complain of

Zeämann’s 1624 treatise, New Mirror of Miracles (Newer Wunderspiegel), in which Zeämann allegedly denigrated Catholic beliefs and practices, and attacked the dignity of the emperor and the Empire’s

Catholic estates. There was little discernible urgency regarding Zeämann’s case; nothing seems to have resulted from the Imperial Aulic Council’s consideration of Jesuit accusations against him until several years after the initial reports on his scurrilous activities. In the meantime, another Jesuit,

Elias Graf, confronted Zeämann with a published refutation of the New Mirror of Miracles. Despite being denounced publicly and before the imperial court in Vienna (about which Zeämann may have been unaware initially), Zeämann remained silent until 1627, when he published an Apologia in defense of himself. The Apologia invited renewed imperial interest, as evidenced by the Imperial

Aulic Council’s fresh deliberations on how to handle his increasingly bothersome case. The turning point came in 1628 when imperial authorities sought his arrest, which they secured just after

Christmas. As 1628 turned into 1629, representatives of Archduke Leopold V of Tirol, Emperor

Ferdinand II’s brother, trooped Zeämann to Ehrenberg where the archduke held him in custody for sixty-two weeks to investigate allegations of libel and sedition. Following his release in 1630,

Zeämann uprooted his family and traveled north to Swedish-controlled Stralsund, where he again worked as preacher and superintendent. Upon his death in 1638, Zeämann’s colleagues and family celebrated his unwavering commitment to Lutheranism in the face of adversity and persecution.

(2) Theodor Thumm (1586-1630) was a Lutheran theologian, polemicist, and professor at the university in Tübingen. Second only to Zeämann, with whom authorities associated Thumm as a fellow libeler and co-conspirator, the records for Thumm’s case are among the most extensive for 24

a single case I encountered in the HHStA holdings. Thumm was born in Württemberg in 1586 to a

Lutheran clergyman, Gottfried Thumm. The younger Thumm received his education at Stuttgart and then at the famed Stift in Tübingen.29 By the early seventeenth century, he had earned his master’s degree in philosophy and, after his exams at Stuttgart, assumed a position as deacon.

Several years later, Thumm became pastor and superintendent in Kirckheim unter Teck southeast of

Stuttgart and northeast of Tübingen. In 1618, he joined the theological faculty at the university in

Tübingen, where he flourished as a controversialist and a polemicist under the protection of the university’s chancellor, Lucas Osiander, grandson of Lutheran reformer and theologian Andreas

Osiander. Tübingen’s printers wasted little time getting Thumm’s polemics and disputations to press. Among his earliest works, published in his first year at Tübingen, were disputations against the “errors of Catholics” on a variety of theological points, against the Calvinist article of predestination, and a comparative analysis of Catholics, Calvinists, Anabaptists, and the Photinians

(an early Christian heresy).30 An equal-opportunity polemicist, Thumm also sparred with Lutheran theologians in Gießen over interpretations of the human nature of Christ, which had been a significant controversy in drafting the Formula of Concord.31

29 For more of the Tübingen Stift, see Bruce Tolley, Pastors and Parishioners in Württemberg during the Late Reformation, 1581- 1621 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 31-44.

30 Theodor Thumm and Christoph Scholtz, Disputatio De Norma Controversiarum, Pontificorum erroribus opposite, Cuius Subiectas Theses / Sub auspiciis Sacrosanctae Trinitatis in inclyta Tubinga (Tübingen: Dietrich Werlin, 1618), VD17 14:685937Q; Theodor Thumm and Johann Schlater, Misanthropia Calvinistica, Hoc Est, Horrendorum Et Blasphemorum Errorum, Quos Calvinistae in Articulo de Praedestinatione fovent, brevis & methodica barratio, solidaque ex Deit verbo refutation, in gratiam Synodi Dordrechtanae nupereditae (Tübingen: Dietrich Werlin, 1619), VD17 12:153872T; Theodor Thumm and Johann Heinrich Faber, Disputatio de Baptismo: Pontificiorum, Calvinistarum, Anabaptistarum ac Photinianorum erroribus opposita (Tübingen: Dietrich Werlin, 1619), VD17 12:149688G.

31 Paul Tschackert, “Thumm, Theodor Th.,” in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 38 (1894): 169-171, accessed 31 March 2015, http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ppn123140528.html?anchor=adb.

Thumm came to the attention of the Imperial Aulic Council in 1625 in the same letters that had reported on Zeämann’s activities. According to his Jesuit detractors, Thumm had published a disputation in 1619 that referred to the work of Tübingen jurist and historian Johann Nauclerus (d.

1510) in which he had argued that every pope from Sylvester II through Gregory VII was a practitioner of black magic.32 Thumm’s case revolved around his marked anti-papalism and its consequences for Catholic rulers. Thumm’s case gained momentum, in fact, on the back of his insistence that Evangelicals in Catholic lands must regard the pope as the Antichrist and resist efforts at Catholicization, for which authorities censured Thumm for seditiously traducing the dignity and honor of the emperor and other Catholic sovereigns in the Empire.

Imperial authorities set to work on Thumm’s case more swiftly than they did Zeämann’s, regardless of the close association their mutual Jesuit antagonists maintained between them. Only a month after it received the complaints of Jesuits from Dillingen and Ingolstadt, the Imperial Aulic

Council wrote to the Duke of Württemberg that Thumm’s writings were libelous. The Council requested that the duke arrest Thumm, confiscate his books, and send what he gathered to Vienna for official review. Although apologetic, the duke did not comply fully with imperial demands, most notably regarding Thumm’s arrest. Even though little happened to Thumm in 1626 at the behest of imperial officials, the Jesuits nevertheless openly denounced him in printed polemic. Imperial authorities resumed their pursuit of Thumm in 1627. They again demanded his arrest for seditiously defaming the emperor and violating imperial law. This time the duke relented somewhat, ordering the university in Tübingen to confiscate Thumm’s works and to prohibit further production and distribution of his writings. The theological faculty opposed the duke, however, arguing for the

32 18 March 1625, Laurenz Forer to Wilhelm Lamormaini, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 17-18; here 17r.

greater good of the community of Lutheran theologians. Compliance with imperial demands, they said, would have terrible consequences for all Evangelical discourse in the Empire, implying that

Catholic powers could freely bully their confessional rivals into silence. Thumm himself pleaded that, if the duke allowed imperial authorities to make a trial against him and his publications, every outstanding Lutheran theologian would be indicted in short order.33 Thumm tried to make amends in other ways instead. Thumm appealed to the emperor’s mercy in a personal apology. Regardless,

Emperor Ferdinand II demanded punishment. Wishing to placate the emperor, the Duke of

Württemberg finally relented and imprisoned Thumm for six months, from January through June

1628. Thumm’s incarceration did not derail his career, however; he resumed his position at the university and published a few antagonistic theological disputations. Unfortunately, Thumm’s premature death in 1630 does not permit us to trace his long-term career trajectory after his release.

He was only forty-four years old.

Organization

There are six chapters in this dissertation, which fall roughly into two parts. The first part focuses narrowly on libel in the legal and conceptual framework of imperial censorship, while part two steps back to survey libel’s place in the censorial and regulatory matrix of the Empire. Put another way, the dissertation deals with libel as a legal concept, a regulatory policy, and then

(variously) as a practice. Chapter One explores libel’s pride of place in imperial censorship legislation between the Edict of Worms in 1521 and the New Police Ordinance in 1577. The common denominator in every imperial recesses, edict, and ordinance in that period was the

33 Gunther Franz, “Bücherzensur und Irenik. Die theologische Zensur im Herzogtum Württemberg in der Konkurrenz von Universität und Regierung,” in Theologen und Theologie an der Universität Tübingen, ed. Martin Brecht (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr Siebeck, 1977), 123-194.

prohibition of libel. Because authorities never strictly defined libel, however, the laws oscillated in their implied understanding of the term. Much depended on context. Before the Religious Peace of

Augsburg codified religious pluralism in the Empire, for example, the legal understanding of the term came closer to, or moved further away from, heresy as a category of illicit expression. When the emperor was in a place of weakness compared with the Evangelical imperial estates, libel was a more neutral term; but when he was in a position of strength, the ban on libel drifted closer to an equivalency with heresy. The Religious Peace technically ended this variability, as evidenced by the

Empire’s official non-relationship with the Roman Index of Prohibited books. This is not to suggest that the Index played no part in censorship in the Empire, as Catholic territories adopted and adapted the Index into their censorship regulations freely. Rather, this observation means to say that the Index played no explicit role in imperial censorship policies as such, although it may have played an indirect role in how individual imperial censors themselves interpreted and enforced imperial censorship regulations. The ambiguities of the Religious Peace of Augsburg and the continued vagueness of libel as a legal concept permitted, however, the continued link of heresy with libel as the confessions became more self-assertive and antagonistic.

Chapters Two and Three explore libel’s fundamental ambiguity in greater depth, looking at its application in specific cases against accused libelers. Barring a normative legal definition of libel, the only way to assess how contemporaries understood the prohibition of libel is to explore its prosecution in practice. Chapter Two asserts that, following the Religious Peace of Augsburg, imperial authorities were preoccupied with maintaining the religious and public peace – rather than the religious unity – of the Empire. As a fundamentally antisocial mode of discourse, imperial censorship laws criminalized libel as disruptive and threatening to the peace. In practice, authorities construed libel as any offensive, insulting, abusive, or scandalous text that might result in discord or violence. The criteria for libel depended on context: Where, when, and whom had been insulted and 28

abused mattered enormously. Both Georg Zeämann and Theodor Thumm discovered that, during the 1620s, as confessional relations strained under the weight of the Thirty Years’ War and Emperor

Ferdinand II’s efforts at recatholicization, old religious disagreements had new life as potentially rebellious and seditious calumnies of imperial dignity. Chapter Three assesses the nature of libel as a literary form in the light of these considerations. It argues that malice was libel’s identifying characteristic, insofar as libel’s purpose was to publicly render its target – whether an individual or a group – contemptible and thus to ruin the victim’s social or political “credit.” Early modern imperial authorities understood libel in this manner, without reference to the truth or falsity of a libel’s accusations per se, for the truth could defame as effectively as falsehood. For these reasons, libels were a pan-generic literary form. They ranged from fictitious anecdotes to works of scholarship, but frequently gave the impression of polemics, which Europe’s intellectuals had preferred as a mode of intellectual combat for centuries.

Chapter Four considers how authorities punished libels. Imperial censorship legislation gave no specific instructions on how to punish libelers, leaving the determination and execution of punishment to local authorities. Following established historiographical models, the chapter explores libel’s punishment in two directions: against the bodies of offenders, on the one hand, and against their material goods and livelihoods, on the other hand. Imperial authorities were not single- minded in their pursuit of bodily punishments. They did not execute, deform, or handicap any libelers, although imperial law approved (in general and in specific reference to libel investigations) the use of torture during the interrogation of detainees. Zeämann and Thumm were the only accused libelers for whom imperial authorities explicitly demanded arrest, suggesting that imperial authorities in this period did not show much interest in incarceration as a form of punishment.

While officials clearly regarded Thumm’s six-month imprisonment as punitive, it was less clear how much of Zeämann’s lengthy spell in Ehrenberg authorities construed as punishment, as the majority 29

of his term was a holding period to facilitate his interrogation. In the end, authorities decided that the months he had spent in their custody would retroactively count as his penalty. Punishment of the body had mixed results, and the efficacy of such measures was dubious. Material punishments were arguably more effectual. Printers and booksellers were more susceptible to these forms of punishment, insofar as confiscation of their wares and the suspension of their trade could be ruinous. There is some evidence these measures worked to chasten bookmen who had fallen afoul of imperial authorities.

Chapter Four shows, too, that the Empire’s decentralized structure obliged imperial authorities to rely on the estates as administrators and enforcers of censorship laws, with whom they negotiated rather than commanded. Chapter Five broadens the dissertation’s scope to examine this consideration’s effect on libel’s administration and enforcement more carefully. Libel anchored a host of regulatory measures for which local authorities were responsible. The point of censorship was to ensure a modicum of control over the shape of public opinion, which local authorities were in a better (i.e. more proximate) position to accomplish than imperial authorities. Imperial laws formally adopted regulatory measures designed to make the prohibition of libelous and potentially rabble-rousing books easier for authorities across the Empire. There was pre-publication review, bans on anonymous and pseudonymous works, limiting the location of printing presses to a handful of designated places, and a mandatory swearing of oaths so bookmen could not feign ignorance of the law. In aggregate these measures increased accountability, accessibility, and visibility, aiding local authorities in the prevention of printed materials dangerous to the public and religious peace.

Authorities, both local and imperial, could not claim full access despite these measures. They managed to achieve limited access to the book trade through the issuance of print privileges, however. 30

Importantly, as Chapter Five notes, authorities interpreted imperial censorship laws according to local conditions. There was nothing to prevent them, considering the ambiguity of the laws’ standards, from applying more parochial interpretations than the legislators themselves may have foreseen or intended; local authorities were more or less free to interpret and prioritize the laws to suit their needs, so long as it was not egregiously out of step with imperial expectations. This too was highly subjective and historically contingent. By the late sixteenth century, imperial authorities decided to participate directly in the regulation of the book market at the local level. They established the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt am Main, site of the Empire’s largest and most significant trade in learned books. Chapter Six offers an in-depth look at the Imperial Book

Commission’s origins, procedures, personnel, its relationship with bookmen, its relationship with authorities in Frankfurt, and finally its relationship with imperial authorities in Vienna. This chapter inspects imperial censorship as it unfolded “on the ground,” so to speak, and fits imperial censorship’s aims and objectives, as well as its successes and failures, into the broader framework of censorship in the Empire during the confessional age.

Chapter One Libel in Imperial Censorship Laws, ca. 1521-1577

The prohibition of libelous literature was a fundamental concern for imperial censorship law in the Holy Roman Empire during the sixteenth century. This chapter traces the presence of libel in imperial censorship laws, exploring the legal understanding of libel in relation to historical conditions. While imperial censorship laws in the sixteenth century insisted on libel’s unequivocal illegality, they nevertheless left the legal understanding of the term shrouded in ambiguity.

Ambiguity was a desirable quality because it allowed authorities to accommodate shifting contexts, which helped solidify its place as the cornerstone of imperial censorship law. Examining imperial censorship legislation codified at various imperial diets between Worms in 1521 and Frankfurt in

1577, this chapter proceeds chronologically and offers two preliminary observations that frame much of the remaining dissertation. First, from the Edict of Worms (1521) through the Augsburg

Interim (1548), officials used libel and heresy more or less interchangeably to condemn and suppress

Evangelical writings. When referring to Protestantism, in other words, libel and heresy were near equivalents for imperial authorities, although the explicitness of their relationship depended on the ebb and flow of Protestant influence in the period. Second, from the Religious Peace of Augsburg

(1555) onward, the legalization of Lutheranism in the Empire meant imperial censorship law could no longer explicitly criminalize Evangelical writings as heretical; they could still regard Evangelicals as heretics, but were legally obligated to extend toleration to them. Because libel was a coherent legal concept independent of heresy, it stood alone after 1555 as the Empire’s lowest common denominator for regulating printed expression, even though official religious pluralism did not fully resolve libel’s prior relationship with heresy. As we shall see when we turn to the archival documents, definitional ambiguity permitted sharply confessionalized interpretations of libel that led to the suppression of anti-Catholic religious texts. 32

Imperial Libel Law from the Edict of Worms to the Augsburg Interim, ca. 1521-1548

Libel’s abiding pride of place among illicit categories of written expression was indicative of its significance to imperial authorities. During the period that separated the early Reformation from the age of confessionalization, across the vicissitudes of a century defined by controversy, conflagration, and change, the ban on scurrilous literature was constant. All imperial legislation relevant to the regulation of the imperial book trade from the Edict of Worms in 1521 through the

Police Ordinance of 1577 outlawed the composition, publication, and distribution of libels. In fact, according to the body of imperial censorship laws during the sixteenth century, libel swiftly replaced heresy as the primary justification for the censorship of certain books, although libel would retain a distinct but implicit connection with heresy until at least the Religious Peace of Augsburg in 1555 and afterward. The Empire’s institution of censorship controls had come in response to the threat of heresy provoked by Martin Luther. The Edict of Worms (1521) confirmed Luther’s heresy, placed him under the imperial ban, and has understandably garnered much attention in the nearly half-millennium since it tried to brush aside a famously steadfast Luther. The struggle to contain

Luther’s writings provides the metanarrative for censorship studies in the Empire and it has shaped how scholars explain the complexities of censorship in other countries as well.34

It is surprising given the Luther-centricity of these narratives that Luther’s name did not appear more frequently in imperial censorship legislation subsequent to the Edict of Worms. None of the other sixteenth-century imperial recesses relevant to the censorship of the imperial book trade made direct reference to Luther or his followers. Instead, the focus shifted more definitively to the

34 On the one hand, there is the older but still formidable historiographical tradition of identifying Luther specifically and Protestantism more generally as irrepressible because of the truth-value and thus the appeal of Luther’s reforming message. On the other hand, there are those who look to the structure of the Empire, with its jurisidictional snarls that enouraged (or at least permitted) the political self-interests of sympathetic or otherwise savvy princes and magistrates, as the cause of censorship’s failure to stop Luther’s movement from spreading. 33

illegality of libel. The Edict itself took a stand against “all insulting and libelous books, and other such writings and illustrations,” and criminalized Luther’s criticisms of the papacy and the Roman

Church as not only heretical but also defamatory.35 It was clear, however, that the Edict was primarily concerned with Luther as a heretic, and as a libeler to the extent that it was an unavoidable consequence of his blasphemous contumacy. The Edict’s prohibition of Luther’s condemned heretical writings loomed in the background as a lens through which antagonistic authorities could interpret imperial prescriptions concerning libel in the 1520s, 1530s, and 1540s. In other words, the

Edict retained its significance for censorship law, most often as an assumption rather than an assertion, allowing authorities to elide the distinctions between libel and heresy as circumstances warranted.

The imperial diets of this period made efforts at a workable solution to the twin problems of interpreting and applying the Edict of Worms. The process commenced in Nuremberg, suitably enough, which was supportive of Luther’s reforms as well as a printing hub of budding significance.

During the period between the Edict of Worms and successive imperial diets at Nuremberg (1522-

1524), magistrates from several prominent cities, including Nuremberg itself, had hoped that a rapprochement was both possible and forthcoming. Caught between pressure for conformity with the Edict from above and agitation for the institution of reforms from below, civic magistrates wanted Emperor Charles V to exercise restraint, temper the stringency of the Edict, and permit them to pursue a “middle way.”36 Archduke Ferdinand, who represented the emperor during his

35 All direct citations of the Edict of Worms are derived from CRI, The Voice: Biblical and Theological Resources for Growing Christians, Dennis Bratcher (ed.), http://www.cresourcei.org/creededictworms.html. I have experienced surprising hardship acquiring a text, or critical edition, of the Edict as it is not contained in either the Weimar or American editions of Luther’s works. Nor do the libraries at Loyola or Tulane have a copy in their holdings.

36 Günther Vogler, “Imperial City Nuremberg, 1524-1525: The Reform Movement in Transition,” in The German People and the Reformation, ed. and trans. R. Po-Chia Hsia (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1988): 33-49; here 34- 34

extended absence from the Empire, had apparently led them to believe (and may have himself hoped) that a confrontation was avoidable. Charles dashed those hopes at the third and final diet in

Nuremberg (1524) by insisting, via messenger, that obedience to the Edict of Worms remained the measure of loyalty.37 In the recess for the Nuremberg diet, the sole reference to imperial censorship policy regarding Luther’s writings came indirectly through demands for submission to the Edict.

Recognizing that the Edict had not made a sufficient impression, the recess reminded the imperial estates that faithful observance of the Edict was their collective responsibility as “patrons and protectors of the faith.”38 As was the case with the Edict, however, Nuremberg’s censorship directives included a comment on libels. The recess stipulated, “each and every authority should make the necessary inspections of their print shops, so that defamatory writings and images are henceforth entirely destroyed and no longer distributed.”39 One can infer from the pronouncement that Nuremberg continued to insist on the correlative illegality of heresy and libel, as the Edict itself had done.

When the imperial diet convened at Speyer in 1529, the Edict’s authority to bind the imperial estates was a point of contention. The previous diet in Speyer (1526) had ostensibly suspended the

Edict and permitted the estates to pursue limited religious reforms. However, firmly Catholic authorities had regained their advantage and endeavored to frustrate changes made in the Empire

37; Thomas A. Brady, Jr., “The Reformation of the Common Man, 1521-1524,” in The German Reformation: The Essential Readings, ed. C. Scott Dixon (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999): 94-132; here 101-108; Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 64-78.

37 Brady, “The Reformation of the Common Man,” 108-109.

38 18 April 1524, Recess for the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg, §28. “Nachdem im Eingang vermerkt worden, dass die Städte also Schützer und Schirmherren des Glaubens das wormser Mandat mit Gehorsam beobachten warden.”

39 Ibid. “Darzu dass jede Obrigkeit bei ihren Druckereyen, und sonst allenthalben nothdürfftig Einsehens haben sollen, damit Schmachschrifft und Gemählde hinfürter gäntzlich abgethan werd und nicht weiter ausgebreitet: Und dass forther der Druckerey halben, Inhalt unsers Mandats gehalten werde.”

since 1526. Yet the Reformation’s inroads prevented an unequivocal reassertion of the Edict. The recess reinstituted the Edict as the prevailing placeholder on matters of religion, including its ban on

Luther’s works, but refrained from invoking it indefinitely. Rather, the Edict retained its authority only until a future council convened to deal with the religious controversy once-and-for-all. The section relevant to the regulation of the book trade mirrored the recess’s general cautiousness, offering its pronouncements as censorship guidelines “in the meantime of a future council,” during which time every authority was expected to institute pre-publication censorship and ensure the suppression of defamatory writings.40 With the status of the Edict uncertain, the exclusion and suppression of certain writings for religious reasons (i.e. for associations with Luther’s heresy) was equally tenuous.

Speyer’s unsettled censorship guidelines prevailed until the diet at Augsburg (1530), where recently returned Emperor Charles V attended to the Empire’s gaping religious schism for the first time since Worms in 1521. The Augsburg recess’s provisions for censorship did not mention the

Edict of Worms, although lack of obedience to the Edict was a point of contention informing the recess as a whole. For fleeting moments, the recess’s language encouraged conciliation. Yet the recess left the overwhelming impression of an ultimatum offered to Protestants rather than an olive branch. They plaintively urged the necessity of ending the schism for the sake of peace and unity, insofar as Evangelicals were compelled to cease their reforms and become Catholics again for all intents and purposes. In a sense, the events at Worms and Augsburg mirrored one another closely:

40 22 April 1529, Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer, §9. “Darzu sollen und wollen wir, auch Churfürsten, Fürsten und Ständ des Reichs, mittlerzeit des Concilii, in allen Druckereyen und bey allen Buchführern, eines jeden Obrigkeiten mit allem möglichen Fleiss Versehung thun, das weiter nichts neues gedruckt, und sonderlich Schmähschriften, weder öffentlich oder heimlich gedicht, gedruckt, zue kauffen feilgetragen oder ausgelegt werden, sondern was derhalben weiter gedicht, gedruckt oder feil gehabt wird, das soll zuvor von jeder Obrigkeit durch dazu verordnete verständige Personen besichtiget.”

In both instances, the Protestant doctrinal position had received a hearing that the emperor’s theologians rejected and condemned. The Reformation had made substantial progress since 1521, obliging Catholic leaders to exercise patience in handling Luther’s Reformation. Accordingly,

Charles gave the Evangelical estates until the following April to consider their reconciliation with the

Catholic Church. From the Evangelical perspective, Augsburg’s recess reinstituted the Edict of

Worms without explicitly invoking it. It demanded a halt to Protestants’ activities, strongly intimated a nearly total reversal of their gains, and, most relevant for our considerations, included censorship of Evangelical books. As part of the effort to preserve “peace and unity” from the period between the conclusion of the diet and the April deadline, the recess ordered leading

Evangelical estates – specifically the Elector of Saxony and his “kinsmen” – to suspend the publication and distribution of religious writings in their territories.41 While Lutheranism was unnamed, following this order in Saxony was not feasible without hauling Lutheran writings into the dragnet. Conversely, Catholic rulers were not similarly obliged to suppress the religious publications of their printers for the sake of “peace and unity.” Only renewed restrictions on Evangelical books served everyone’s best interests, which signaled in an obvious way that the Empire’s leading

Catholics regarded Lutheranism as singularly responsible for the propagation of religious controversy.

Although Augsburg approached the censorship of Evangelical texts with greater subtly than the Edict had, it was clear nevertheless that the recess’s moments of restraint were a thin veneer; disdain for Lutheranism and longing for its suppression were scarcely concealed. Following a litany

41 19 November 1530, Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg, §2. “Als nemlich, dass Unser ernstlicher Will, Meinung und Befehl sey, dass Churfürst zu Sachsen samt seinen Mitverwandten mittler Zeit dieses gemeldten 15. Tages des Aprilis verordnen, dass nichts Neues, der Sachen des Glaubens halben in ihren Fürstenthumen, Landen und Gebieten getruckt, feilgehabt noch verkaufft werde: und dass alle Churfürsten, Fürsten und Stände des heiligen Reichs mittler Zeit dieses Bedachts gut Fried und Einigkeit halten sollen.”

of ways that Lutherans had acted illegally and blasphemously, the recess turned its attention to libelous materials, raising again the question of the relationship between libel and heretical writings in imperial censorship law. Augsburg’s recess insisted on the essential illegality of defamatory writings, repeating nearly verbatim the formulation proffered at Speyer in 1529. The recess ordered

“each elector, prince, and estate of the Empire, spiritual or temporal, should ensure with utmost diligence that, until a future council, all print shops and booksellers produce nothing new, especially defamatory items, whether openly or secretly composed, printed, or sold unless previously inspected by temporal or spiritual authorities or by selected and reasonable persons.”42 If it were possible to approach this declaration in isolation, it would be possible to interpret it neutrally, without reference to one religious position or another. Nevertheless, in this instance, the recess equated “defamatory” and “Lutheran” as the Edict of Worms had. The prohibition on defamatory items was tucked between an appeal for obedience to established Church traditions and ceremonies, on the one hand, and a chiding for the illegal confiscation and appropriation of properties belonging to bishoprics, ecclesiastical foundations, and monasteries, on the other. There was little doubt that Charles V remained convinced that Protestant literature was both heretical and defamatory. Yet he was apparently willing to postpone an outright condemnation in the manner of the Edict of Worms until a Church council convened to settle the dispute. The ambiguities of Speyer were no longer as pronounced, although the wording of the recesses on this matter was nearly identical. Context was important.

42 Ibid., §58. “Und nachdem durch die unordentliche Truckerey biss anhero viel Ubels entstanden, setzen, ordnen und wollen Wir, dass ein jeder Churfürst, Fürst und Stand des Reichs Geistlich und Weltlich, mittler Zeit des künstigen Concilii in allen Truckereyen, auch bei allen Buchführern mit ernstem Fleiss Versehung thun, dass hinfürter nichts Neues, und sonderlich Schmähschrifft, Gemählets, oder dergleichen, weder öffentlich noch heimlich gedicht, getruckt oder feilgehabt werden, es sei denn zuvor durch dieselb Geistlich oder Weltlich Oberkeit darzu verordnete verständige Personen besichtigt.” 38

The practice of positing a connection between Evangelical texts and libels in imperial censorship law continued at the imperial diet in 1548, held again at Augsburg. Lutherans had formed the Schmalkaldic League in lieu of meeting their April deadline for reconciling with the

Catholic Church following the 1530 diet at Augsburg, and from 1546 through 1547, the League fought a losing war with Emperor Charles V. In the aftermath of the eponymous “War of the

League of Schmalkald,” Charles carried on the project of engineering a reversal of the Reformation’s fortunes. The diet integrated the Augsburg Interim, which offered a few concessions to

Evangelicals in the meantime of the Council of Trent’s conclusion. As one historian has observed, the Interim “aimed to re-catholicize Protestant territories and cities in ways ‘Catholic’ enough to be despised by most loyal Evangelicals,” even though the Interim permitted a number of “progressive” reforms, such as communion in both kinds as well as “some flexibility regarding the mass and clerical marriage.”43 In any event, the Evangelical movement had to part with much that it regarded as true and proper. The process of recatholicizing wayward Evangelical estates involved the suppression of Evangelical books, whether strictly construed as libelous or not. The ban on libelous books was expressed once more in the language hammered out at Speyer in 1529 and repeated at

Augsburg in 1530 and Regensburg in 1541.44 For the first time since the Edict of Worms, Charles openly declared that denials of Catholic doctrine were intolerable under imperial law. The diet’s

43 John M. Frymire, The Primacy of the Postils: Catholics, Protestants, and the Dissemination of Ideas in Early Modern Germany (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 127-128.

44 For Speyer (1529) and Augsburg (1530), see above. 29 July 1541, Recess for the Imperial Diet at Regensburg, §40: “Und demnach Uns mit Churfürsten, Fürsten und gemeinen Ständen verglichen, dass hinfüro in dem Heil. Reich keine Schmähschrifften, wie die Namen haben mogen, getruckt, feyl gehabt, kaufft, noch verkaufft, sondern wo die Tichter, trucker, Kauffer oder Verkauffer betreten.” 30 June 1548, “Von Schmähschrifften, Gemählden und Gemächten,” in Der Römisch Kayserl. Majestat Ordnung und Reformation gutter Polizei, zu Beförderung, dess gemeinen Nutzens auff dem Reichstag zu Augsburg, article XXXIV, §1. “[D]ass in allen Druckereyen, auch bey allen Buchführern, mit ernstem Fleiss Fürsehung gethan, dass hinführo nichts Neues, und sonderlich Schmähschrifften, Gemählds oder dergleichen, weder öffentlich noch Heimlich gedicht, gedruckt, noch feil gehabt warden sollen.”

Police Ordinance strictly prohibited the writing, production, and distribution of printed materials,

“untoward and offensive to common Catholic doctrine [and] the Holy Christian Church,” and which otherwise “gave cause to unrest” or were defamatory.45 Non- or anti-Catholic texts were thus held up as illicit alongside – and nearly indistinguishable from – defamatory and rebellious writings.

Imperial law in this period assumed differences between libel and heresy, perhaps, but made no earnest effort to delimit them. Why not? This requires some explanation because neither libel nor heresy was an innovation of the early modern period. Rather, they had each existed for a long time and early modern legal scholars had encountered them with enough frequency to maintain a distinction, however tenuous it might have been. There were resources to which the Empire’s jurists, theologians, and legislators could have turned to resolve the ambiguities, which suggests that they could have teased out the distinctions between heresy and libel had they wished. In other words, imperial censorship law was not concocting categories of illegal expression as it went along.

Libel was an ancient legal category handed down to contemporaries through Roman law, with which the Empire’s jurists were, in fairness, just becoming better acquainted.46 The closest imperial law came to a formal discussion of libel was in the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina. Approved at the diet of

Augsburg in 1530 and formally incorporated into imperial law at the Regensburg diet in 1532, the

Carolina was the Empire’s first body of criminal law, and was based in large part on Roman law. For

45 Ordnung und Reformation gutter Polizei (1548), article XXXIV, §2. “Ferner setzen, ordnen, und wollen Wir, dass alle und jede Obrigkeiten Uns und dem heil. Reich unterworffen, ernstlich Einsehens thun und verschaffen sollen, das nicht allein dem, wie obgemeldt treulich nachkommen und gelebt werde, sondern dass auch nichts, so der Catholischen allgemainen Lehr, der heiligen Christlichen Kirchen ungemäss und widerwärtig, oder zu Unruhe und Weiterung Ursach geben, desgleichen auch nichts schmählichs, passquillisches oder ander Weiss, wie das Namen haben möcht, diesem jetzo allhie aufgerichten Abschied und andern Abschieden, so demselben nicht entgegen seynd, ungemäss, in was Schein das geschehen möchte, gedicht, geschrieben, in Druck gebracht, gemahlt, geschnitzt, gegossen oder gemacht.”

46 Gerald Strauss, Law, Resistance, and the State: The Opposition to Roman Law in Reformation Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986); Joy Wiltenburg, “The Carolina and the Culture of the Common Man: Revisiting the Imperial Penal Code of 1532,” in Renaissance Quarterly 53 (2000): 713-734.

its part, Roman law had addressed libel at several places and with sufficient detail to give the term a basic legal foundation for the early modern period.47 The Carolina, by contrast, discussed the punishment for libels (which was also characteristically non-specific) and mentioned its characteristics only in passing. This may have accorded with the Carolina’s purpose of familiarizing local officials and court officials with the contours of legal knowledge, which ultimately meant, “the

Carolina is an ambiguous text, despite its vigorous language.”48

It acknowledged two of libel’s essential features, to be discussed in more detail at points throughout the remainder of the present work but worth noting here. On the one hand, according to the Carolina, libel was recognizable by its immediate consequences: Libel injured its victim’s

“body, life, or honor.”49 On the other hand, the intentions of the text’s creator distinguished libel from other species of written works. A libeler deliberately set out to injure his victim(s), conferring on libels a malicious intention that was truly its sine qua non. Although libels had a complicated relationship with truth, the Carolina insisted that injurious statements tended to have “contrived the truth” (wo die mit Wahrheit erfunden würden).50 The truth or falsity of an injurious statement alone did not decide libel. Rather, the deciding factor was that the injurious statement, whether true or false, was employed with the intention of causing harm. Theoretically, it was impossible to libel someone accidentally. However, deciding matters of libel was far more complicated in practice. Even though

47 Digest book 47, title 10, “De iniuriis et Famosis libellis”; Institutes, book 4, title 4, “De iniuriis”; Codex, book 9, title 36, “De Famosis Libellis.”

48 Wiltenburg, “The Carolina and the Culture of the Common Man,” 716. She says in full, “In some ways the Carolina is an ambiguous text, despite its vigorous language. Imperial legal reformers had hoped to establish a new, universally binding code, one that would sweep away the confusions and errors of conflicting local practices.”

49 Kaiser Karl des Fünften Peinlich Hals-Gerichts-Ordnung von 1532, Article 110: “Straff schrifftlicher unrechtlicher peinlicher Schmehung.”

50 Ibid. 41

the Carolina gave only an abbreviated treatment, it was nevertheless consistent with Roman law in its basic points.

Early modern ecclesiastical and secular authorities were familiar with heresy, and had access to numerous sources explaining its finer points in the body of Canon Law. The history of heresy and orthodoxy in Christianity is too long, and the scholarly literature on the subject too expansive, to summarize it here. At the risk of reducing this complicated topic to mere generalities, it can be observed that heresy shared the two features just discussed with regard to libel. In the first place, heresy caused injury at a variety of closely interconnected levels, from the mundane to the cosmic.

Ultimately, heresy was dissension against God and was thus an insult to divine honor and majesty.

In Luther’s case, his critical opposition to a host of doctrinal matters, not the least of which was his rejection of papal primacy, represented such an affront. Second, heresy involved malice. One could argue that the heretic’s position was not malicious to the extent that he or she could be credited with sincerity, and that they had not intended to harm God’s majesty and honor. This was true, theoretically at least, of heterodox beliefs. While heterodoxy was the seed of heresy, the two were not equivalent. Heretics, by definition, obstinately clung to their heterodox ideas in spite of counseling and correction.51 In other words, it was possible to be innocently heterodox, but impossible to be unintentionally heretical. It was likewise possible to be innocently offensive, but not possible to be unintentionally libelous.

Viewed in this way, the steady drifting together and coming apart of heresy and libel in imperial censorship laws is understandable. Conceptually and juridically, they were very close to one another, as we have seen. More importantly, before 1555 there was yet no good reason to parse

51 R. I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950-1250, 2nd ed. (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2007), 64.

them apart. Imperial censorship legislation, from the Edict of Worms in 1521 through the diet at

Augsburg in 1548, did not clearly define or distinguish libel and heresy because it did not have to. It was sufficient to command obedience to the Edict of Worms, which had ordered the suppression of

Luther’s books – and the books of his supporters and allies – primarily because of their heresy.

When the diets hedged on heresy, they did so because it was expedient, not because it represented a significant shift in thinking about Evangelical ideas and books. Even though the Edict pronounced

Luther’s books libelous, there was no indication that this was crucial to the imperial ban, as if his books would have passed muster if only they were not also libelous. The censorship regulations of this period occurred while contests over obedience to the Edict unfolded. The omnipresence of libel, as opposed to heresy, in censorship laws did not signal a substantive break in how imperial authorities conceived of these terms, but rather reflected the exigencies of political maneuvering. Of the two operative forms of illegal expression involved here, libel provided more comprehensive censorial coverage than heresy did alone. All heretical texts were intrinsically libelous, but not all libels were inherently heretical. By stressing the illegality of libel during the period of debate over the Edict, imperial authorities could assert authority over print production without abandoning their insistence on the heretical nature of Protestant texts when conditions were favorable for doing so.

Libel Law from the Religious Peace of Augsburg to the New Police Ordinance, ca. 1555-1570

The legacy of the associations between libel and heresy was evident in imperial censorship laws (and practices) after the Religious Peace of Augsburg in 1555. The Religious Peace codified religious pluralism in the Empire, extending legal recognition to adherents of the Augsburg

Confession alongside Catholics. The Religious Peace did not address censorship directly. It nevertheless had significant consequences for how imperial censorship laws were articulated and interpreted thereafter. For present purposes, the most relevant change wrought by the Religious 43

Peace was its nullification of the Edict of Worms as the controlling standard for imperial censorship law. The arrangements conceded in 1555 prohibited the imperial government from discriminating against books for religious reasons; heresy was not sufficient cause to suppress an Evangelical book.52 The Religious Peace allowed the imperial estates to suppress rival confessions and their texts in their territories, however. The Empire’s princes obtained the jus reformandi through the

Religious Peace, the effect of which was captured later by the pithy phrase cuius regio, eius religio. The imperial princes were under no obligation to tolerate religious dissension in their lands, and the

Religious Peace did not grant their subjects a right to dissent in any event.53

One consequence of the Empire’s grudging commitment to religious pluralism was that the imperial government could not develop an open relationship with the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Although the process of selectively condemning heretical texts and banning members of the faith from reading, selling, or possessing them had been consistent practice from early Christianity, the landscape had changed by several orders of magnitude with the coming of print. The sixteenth- century’s print-driven religious conflagrations necessitated sweeping lists of banned books. The

Empire had followed the more selective tradition with the Edict of Worms. Deciding on the Luther matter was a Church prerogative before 1521, although Luther himself tried to extricate his fate from the Church’s grasp through appeals to the Empire’s nobility.54 Luther’s case ran the

52 Although technically the Religious Peace did not recognize the legality of the Reformed church, which meant that reformed books were vulnerable to suppression. The archival records, however, revealed no pronounced concern with or systematic effort to suppress Reformed books in the period after the Religious Peace. The Frankfurt city council and the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt seemed content on most occasions to tolerate the open printing of Reformed books.

53 Peter Wilson, The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2009), 43-46.

54 Martin Luther, “An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nobility as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom (1520),” in Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York: Anchor Books, 1962): 403-488.

ecclesiastical gauntlet through the theological faculties at Paris, Louvain, and Cologne, to an audience with Cardinal Cajetan, unto the papal bull, “Exsurge Domine,” that passed official judgment on Luther in 1520 and called for his excommunication. Luther’s hearing at Worms was billed as his last chance to rescind his heretical theological positions. When he famously declined, the diet issued the Edict, ordering the prohibition and suppression of Luther’s works as well as works by supporters or sympathizers. The Edict was among the last in a series of preludes to indexes of prohibited books throughout Europe. It was the closest the imperial government came to the practice and it was very different, being neither comprehensive nor systematic enough to meet the criteria.

The European-wide tendency toward comprehensive indexes of banned books had simply come too late, reaching its crescendo in the 1550s when the Empire was acutely ill-prepared to contribute or participate. As discussed above, hectoring and cajoling the estates toward compliance with the Edict of Worms required considerable effort and had achieved little discernible success. It is difficult to imagine that an Imperial Index of Forbidden Books would have enjoyed a more enthusiastic reception. If there had been even flickering potential for an Empire-wide index, the

Religious Peace of Augsburg extinguished it in 1555. The Religious Peace instituted religious pluralism and was predicated on the Empire’s political decentralization, thereby precluding the possibility of a unified, comprehensive imperial index almost entirely. As for the effects of the

Empire’s political decentralization, the fact that Charles V, his descendants as well as his relatives, integrated indexes of forbidden books in other Habsburg lands – namely, Spain and the Netherlands

– attests to the hurdles the Empire’s unique arrangement posed for centralized censorship 45

initiatives.55 Religious pluralism likewise scuppered an imperial index because religion played such a vital role in contests over printed expression. Heresy remained the chief offense for landing on a list of banned books. The Roman Church issued the most notorious series of indexes during and after the Council of Trent. The first version circulated in 1559 under Pope Paul IV, referred to as the

Pauline Index.56 The strictness of the Pauline Index made too many other Catholics ill at ease, leading to its revision subsequent to conclusion of the Council of Trent as the Tridentine Index.

Even though the Church’s indexes entered the Catholic world only after the Empire had already come to its religious settlement in 1555, this did not mean that they made no discernible impact in the Empire. The Religious Peace allowed the imperial princes to pursue their own religious agendas, which influenced their censorship policies. Catholic princes were therefore free to adopt and adapt the Index at their own discretion.

Rather than cobbling together lists of banned books, imperial censorship criminalized broad categories of expression. Imperial authorities fixed their gaze on libel, transforming it into the undisputed pillar of imperial censorship law because a blanket prohibition of heresy (i.e. Evangelical books) was no longer possible. The choice was expedient for a number of reasons. Libel’s position as an adjunct to heresy prior to the Religious Peace meant that imperial law could preserve continuity with previous imperial censorship legislation. As we have seen, most of the recesses’ pronouncements on censorship before 1555 had underscored libel’s illegality, and had done so with language evasive enough to pass for confessional neutrality upon later re-reading. Indeed, the

55 H. F. K. van Nierop, “Censorship, Illict Printing and the Revolt of the Netherlands,” in Too Mighty to Be Free: Censorship and the Press in Britain and the Netherlands, eds. A. C. Duke and C. A. Tamse (Zutphen: De Walburg Pers, 1987): 29-44; Henry Kamen, The Spanish Inquisition: A Historical Revision (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), 108- 117.

56 Paul F. Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).

Empire did not issue new censorship provisions until 1570 at the diet of Speyer, which suggests that previous sanctions, presumably reinterpreted to suit new confessional arrangements, sufficiently held sway. Even then, Speyer’s insistence on the illegality of libel was remarkable only in its palpable frustration with failures to suppress it.57 An official explanation of the term remained as aloof as before. More suggestive of the changes brought by the Religious Peace was the New Police

Ordinance of 1577, which mirrored the language of the Police Ordinance issued at Augsburg in

1548 in virtually every respect. Charles V’s Police Ordinance had come with the Augsburg Interim, at a time of Catholic advantage after the Schmalkaldic War. Thus, the Police Ordinance of 1548 contained the most openly partisan censorship provisions since the Edict of Worms. Twenty-two years after the Religious Peace, the New Police Ordinance made key alterations to reflect the

Empire’s new circumstances.

The approach to libel itself was unchanged. Each ordinance repeated the clause established at Speyer in 1529.58 They established, in often familiar and always unequivocal terms, that authorities were not to tolerate libelous books and other defamatory productions under any circumstances.59 Despite their similarities, there were differences between the two ordinances that

57 11 December 1570, Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer, §§154, 155, 156, 158. Accusations of failure with regard to enforcement / reception is the subject of ongoing discussion below.

58 Compare Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1529), §9. “…in allen Druckereyen und bey allen Buchführern, eines jeden Obrigkeiten mit allem möglichen Fleiss Versehung thun, das weiter nichts neues gedruckt, und sonderlich Schmähschriften, weder öffentlich oder heimlich gedicht, gedruckt, zue kauffen feilgetragen oder ausgelegt werden…”; Ordnung und Reformation gutter Polizei (1548), article XXXIV, §1: “…in allen Druckereyen, auch bey allen Buchführern, mit ernstem Fleiss Fürsehung gethan, dass hinführo nichts Neues, und sonderlich Schmähschrifften, Gemählds oder dergleichen, weder öffentlich noch heimlich gedicht, gedruckt, noch feil gehabt werden sollen…”; 09 November 1577, Kaiserliche und des Reichs reformirte und gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung, article XXXV, “Von Buchtruckern Schmähschrifften schmählichen Gemähls, Gedicten, und Anschlägen,” §1: …in allen Truckereyen, auch bey allen Buchführern und Händlern, mit ernstem Fleiss Versehung gethan, dass hinfüro nichts neues, so Oberkeit wegen nicht ersehen, insonderheit aber, dass keine Schmähschrifften, Gemählds oder dergleichen weder offentlich noch heimlich gedicht, getruckt und feyl gehabt werden sollen…”

59 Ordnung und Reformation gutter Polizei (1548), article XXXIV, §§1, 2, 4; Reformirte und Gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), article XXXV, §§1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7. 47

reflected the hard lessons of the decades separating them. Censorship laws, like all legal provisions, tended to be accumulative. For example, the New Police Ordinance of 1577 included more rules than its predecessor had. The New Police Ordinance in 1577 had two sections that were not present in 1548, sections Six and Seven.60 Section Six reflected additions made by the previous recess at Speyer in 1570, which will be discussed in more detail below. Section Seven was new to imperial censorship legislation altogether and indicative of a more inclusive definition of libel than had prevailed during the years before the Religious Peace. Rather than intimating the near- equivalency of heresy and defamation, the New Police Ordinance addressed defamation in the mundane. “It has been reported to us,” the section stated, “that several countries have been divided by these types [defamatory] customs and abuses, that where creditors have not been paid by the debtors or guarantors they have publicly attacked, chastised, bawled, and called them out with outrageous placards or letters.”61 This section identified for the first time additional reasons for suppressing libel, namely the tendency of public disputes and abuses to cause disorder, which was not only religious.62 This is worth exploring, especially in consideration of the role disorder and disunity played in the rhetoric of imperial libel cases.

60 There is a slight disparity in the section numbering between the two ordinances. The 1577 Police Ordinance has seven numbered sections, while the 1548 Police Ordinance has four. The 1548 Police Ordinances opening section (§1) was subsequently divided into two separate sections (§§1 and 2) in the 1577 Police Ordinance. Thus, only sections Six and Seven are completely new to the 1577 Police Ordinance compared with its 1548 predecessor.

61 Reformirte und Gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), article XXXV, §7. “Wann Wir auch berichtet worden sind, dass in etlichen Landen dieser Brauch oder vielmehr Missbrauch eingerissen, da dem Glaubiger auff sein Angesinnen von seinem Schuldner oder Bürgen nicht bezahlt wird, dass er derentwegen dieselbigen mit schändlichen Gemähld oder Brieffen, öffentlich anschlagen, schelten, beschreyen und beruffen lässet.”

62 Ibid. “Dieweil aber auch gantz ärgerlich, auch viel Zanks und Böses verursacht, darumb es ja in keinem Gebiet, darinn recht und billichkeit administrirt werden kann, zu verstatten.”

According to Thomas Max Safley, who wrote a brief but highly informative article on the nature and consequences of major business failures in Augsburg, early modern authorities viewed bankruptcy as socially as well as economically disruptive, criminalizing it as a form of civil scandal.63

Safley explains that, as the base of the various definitions of scandal circulating in the early modern world was the Latin original, scandalum, which was “a source of moral offense or stumbling” that

“involves a violation of commonly accepted and shared norms.”64 Importantly, scandal was not the result of all business failures, only particular ones in which the actions of the failed businessmen had violated the common good. More to the point: Scandal accompanied business failures in which borrowers had deliberately hidden risks and taken money and credit from creditors with no intention of paying it back. In this sense, an innocent failure distinguished itself from a scandalous failure by the fact that authorities determined the latter to have been purposeful. The scandal derived from the damage done to the reputation and credibility of the nefarious bankrupt, his associates, his family members, as well as to the community’s as a whole. In the absence of sophisticated tools for risk management (such as detailed statistical analysis), merchant bankers relied heavily on personal reputation and insider information to help them manage investments and lending risks.65 The model for assessing risk involved what Safley identified as a merchant’s Trauen und Glauben, his “credibility and creditworthiness.”66 Trauen und Glauben collectively represented one’s reputation for repaying debts, being reliable in business dealings, and achieving success; apart

63 Thomas Max Safley, “Business Failure and Civil Scandal in Early Modern Europe,” in The Business History Review 8 (2009): 35-60.

64 Ibid., 43.

65 Ibid., 41.

66 Ibid., 46.

from personal reputation, there was no other reliable way to know whether a merchant would honor his commitments.67 Yet reputation and honor were not merely personal. Rather, the loss of credibility could spread to family members and associates in the community, leading to a business crisis threatening the viability of the community. Thus, notorious failures endangered the common good that was the foundation of the early modern social and political order.

Libel functioned in the same way and according to the same basic principles. Libels caused scandals, mostly by accusing someone else of behavior deemed transgressive of established community norms and values. In the case of libels, however, the libel itself was typically identified as the cause of the actual scandal, and hence the sources of community upheaval and discord. As the case of scandalous business failures revealed, the early modern social, political, and economic world revolved around shared values of honor and respectability. An attack on someone’s honor and respectability, affected his (or her) social, political, and economic “credit,” stigmatizing the victim and his (or her) family, partners, and friends in the process.68 The outlines of these threats and dangers will present themselves more starkly in the coming chapters. For now it is important to note that the basis for considerations of libel, like considerations of business failure, was the scandal it invoked (by design), the disorder and violence that could follow in its wake, and the responsibility of authorities to control it. That the libel cases encountered in the imperial archives revolved around confessional conflagrations should not distract from the fact that libelous exchanges could

67 Ibid.

68 Frankly, it is an interesting question, and one begging for closer examination, as to whether libel affected the honor and reputations of men and women in the same ways during the early modern period. For its part, Roman law was markedly patriarchial in its vision of honor and reputation: In the calculation of discredit for defamation, insulting or offending the honor and respectability of a wife or daughter was construed chiefly as an offense against the father or husband. In only one case considered for this dissertation was the victim a woman. In that instance, however, the woman in question was Elisabeth of Reute, and long-deceased almost-saint, whose status as a holy figure eclipsed, but was probably related to, considerations of her gender. It would be worth considering more carefully, too, in a future study of gendered visions of libel in the early modern world. 50

take many forms, as the New Police Ordinances of 1577 reminded. Protection of the common good was the foundation, and therein lay the need to encourage shared values of neighborliness and charity.

The theme of the New Police Ordinance reflected the spirit of cooperation encouraged by imperial authorities following the Religious Peace. Authorities expected citizens of the Empire to keep the peace regardless of their differences, whether those differences were religious or mundane did not theoretically matter. Nevertheless, the incendiary potential of the former clearly had preoccupied officials from the beginning. One approach to preserving the peace involved de- emphasizing religious differences and an emphasis on shared standards of sociability. In an effort to embrace common values, the New Police Ordinance removed unequivocal references to

Catholicism and substituted, or supplemented, them with expressions that were more neutral.69 A comparison with the Police Ordinance of 1548 accentuates the effect. The boldest testament to the

Religious Peace’s realignment of official priorities came when justifying the need for censorship measures in the first place. Both ordinances identified censorship’s goal as “the cultivation and preservation of Christian Love and Unity,” on the one hand, and “the prevention of unrest and complication,” on the other hand.70 Yet each ordinance revealed a different conception of

“Christian Love and Unity” appropriate to their respective positions on either side of the chronological divide erected in 1555. Whereas the 1548 Police Ordinance commanded authorities to prohibit and suppress “anything inappropriate and offensive to common Catholic teaching and

69 The ordinances leave certain references to religion unchanged, aiming in both instances to protect, among other things, “der Lehr der Christlichen Kirchen.” See Ordnung und Reformation gutter Polizei (1548), article XXXIV, §1; Reformirte und Gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), article XXXV, §2.

70 Ordnung und Reformation gutter Polizei (1548), article XXXIV, §1. Reformirte und Gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), article XXXV, §2.

the Holy Christian Church” (der Catholischen allgemeinen Lehr, der Heiligen Christlichen Kirchen ungemäss und widerwärtig), the 1577 New Police Ordinance demanded suppression of “anything inappropriate and offensive to common Christian teaching and the Religious Peace of Augsburg” (der Christl.

Allgemeinen Lehr und zu Augsburg auffgerichten Religion Frieden ungemäss und widerwärtig).71

Subtle changes in the language of these ordinances disclosed a significant reimagining of the

Empire’s religious, political, and social order. Catholic and Protestant authorities alike believed that the Empire’s present and future peace and prosperity depended crucially on religious uniformity in both practice and expression. The Religious Peace of Augsburg did not obviate the distrust of dissidence among princes and magistrates. Moreover, this was not a view imposed from above, however, but was an expectation of the populace as well, namely that authorities would police behavior and expression for the sake of spiritual and social order.72 Before 1555, the Empire’s laws had taken this arrangement for granted, identifying religious conformity as a precondition litmus test for obedience in a broader sense. This was evidenced, as we have seen, in the Edict of Worms, the censorship demands of which were predicated on authorities’ obligation to suppress religious dissent and stymie the spread of heretical writings. The vision of religious uniformity and political unity had influenced everything from the Empire’s status in Western Christendom to the structures and

71 Ordnung und Reformation gutter Polizei (1548), article XXXIV, §2. Reformirte und Gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), article XXXV, §3.

72 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 19-20. It is crucial for Creasman’s arguments about censorship and the regulation of expression, especially in civic contexts, that citizens, subjects, and authorities alike bought into the sacral integrity of the Empire and their communities. She observes, “In their practical effects, policing and censorship in these communities were much more a process of accommodation to communal expectations than the simple imposition of state authority over a passive population. Most citizens, both within the book trade and in the community at large, shared the magistrates’ view that regulation of expression was not only appropriate but essential to protect the public welfare. Within the book trade, economic interests combined with official oversight to encourage a degree of self- regulation independent of the magistrates’ official controls. In large measure, residents internalized similar standards of what was appropriate and reinforced the systems of control. They expected their government to reflect these values, and conflict arose when they perceived that it did not.”

distribution of power within the Empire itself. So closely twinned were religion and politics within the Empire that political reforms and church reforms had long walked hand-in-hand, as the affairs at

Worms itself attested: To alter the Empire’s religious contours entailed a significant reinterpretation of political arrangements as well.73 The pluralism codified by the Religious Peace was challenging in general, but especially to the status and function of the emperor.

Traditionally, the Empire was idealized as the committed guardian of the Church in Europe, and the emperor was the embodiment of that guardianship: The emperor existed to defend and uphold the Catholic Church, its doctrines, institutions, and traditions. This stewardship had bestowed sacrality upon the Empire and sacral authority upon the emperor. The Religious Peace, in theory at least, radically redefined the role of religion, the role of the emperor, and the object of censorship within the Empire. Whereas censorship laws between the Edict of Worms and the

Augsburg Interim had suppressed Protestantism in accordance with the traditional religious aims of censorship, things changed after 1555 since, “as a constitutional matter, the Peace of Augsburg ensured that imperial law could no longer simply prohibit Lutheran works,” and thus changed the role of emperor “from protector of the Roman Catholic Church to guardian of the religious Peace of the Empire.”74 Unity was still prized as the key to stability and peace, but at the imperial level, political unity (i.e. obedience to the Religious Peace) technically outranked religious unity (i.e. obedience to the Roman Church). The Religious Peace, of course, permitted the imperial princes to pursue religious and political unity in the old fashion in their own territories within the overarching

73 Brady, German Histories, 69-156. Brady masterfully encapsulates the confluence of ecclesiastical and secular power in the Empire by observing on page 153, “At Worms in 1521, the first and one of the great assemblies of his reign, the young Charles V would have to confront a troubling case of a stubborn theology professor from the Empire’s edge, who refused to obey his ecclesiastical superiors. That such a case came before the Diet at all suggests how little the Church in the Empire was able to govern its own affairs.”

74 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 52. See also Eisenhardt, Die kaiserliche Aufsicht, 22-23, 32.

framework of the Religious Peace, meaning they could pursue their own religious agendas so long as it did not interfere with the ability of other princes to pursue theirs.

The Religious Peace’s actual (as opposed to imagined or idealized) significance has been difficult to chart. From the time of its adoption, neither Catholics nor Lutherans were comfortable with the arrangements, and both sides tended to view the Religious Peace as a temporary or emergency measure rather than a permanent solution. Probably owing to the Religious Peace’s reluctantly negotiated character, many embedded ambiguities made the deal’s depths difficult to accurately sound. The main difficulty consists in assessing whether the Religious Peace actually changed things or only ostensibly changed things. Martin Heckel captured the difficulties well with his discussion of “dissimulation” (dissimulieren), noting that the Religious Peace’s ambiguities contributed to its own subversion by the rival confessions, inasmuch as “confessional antagonism was not bridged, but rather covered over and ‘dissimulated.’”75 In other words, the confessions were able to winnow legal arguments on their own behalf, respectively, from the vagueness of Religious

Peace. The Religious Peace permitted the princes to pursue their own interpretations of the law and to exploit the ambiguous nature of the legal guarantees in order out-maneuver their rivals.76

Controversy and conflict became entrenched, not only doctrinally but also legally. Tied as it was to notions of confessional sociability engendered in the Religious Peace, contests over the boundaries of the Peace expressed themselves in contests over the acceptability of confessional polemic and propaganda as well as the appropriateness of accusations of libel when applied to confessional discourse.

75 Martin Heckel, “Der Augsburger Religionsfriede: Sein Sinnwandel vom provisorischen Notstands-Instrument zum sakrosankten Reichsfundamentalgesetz religiöser Freiheit und Gleichheit,” in JuristenZeitung 60 (2005): 961-970; here 965.

76 Ibid., 963-964.

***

Because its parameters were largely set forth under the law, censorship illustrated the extent of the Religious Peace’s fundamental ambiguities and “dissimulations.” On the face of things, the

Religious Peace forbade the suppression of Lutheran texts simply because they were Lutheran, and allowed previous provisions protecting Catholicism henceforth to protect Lutheranism as well.77

The deal struck in 1555 ostensibly eliminated heresy from imperial law’s censorial lexicon and replaced it with libel. It was an open question whether the confessions would regard this switch as substantive or superficial; i.e. whether they thought of libel as an altogether distinct legal category from heresy, or as a distinction without a difference. Could one confession have an earnest discussion about the theology of their opponent, which they might regard as heretical, without being vulnerable to accusations of libel and violations of the Religious Peace? Since it was not incumbent upon the respective confessions to desist from regarding one another as heretics, was it possible to print one’s beliefs about the essentially heretical nature of one’s rivals without committing libel? In the final assessment, the point is this: The Religious Peace, although precipitating significant change, did not provide a stable benchmark for the interpretation of the Empire’s already vague censorship laws. An ambiguity of expectations defined imperial censorship legislation, with libel at its center.

Legal ambiguity meant libel was determined on a case-by-case basis, subject to contextual considerations and the subjective interests of the law’s administrators and enforcers, to which we now turn.

77 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 52. 55

Chapter Two The Danger of Libel

Authorities insisted on the illegality of libel as the organizing principle of imperial censorship because it was a convenient stand-in for heresy and because they were anxious about the danger it posed to the peace. Imperial law was preoccupied with libel because it was a perilously anti-social mode of discourse. Turning again to imperial censorship laws, this chapter establishes that imperial officials deplored libel for its disruptive social consequences, namely its tendency to promote conflict. Libel was not a victimless crime, and was fundamentally inseparable from violence. As the processes of confessionalization hardened religious attitudes in the late sixteenth- and early seventeenth centuries, religious invective seeded the atmosphere with tension that threated to erupt into popular religious violence under certain circumstances. In order to assess what contemporaries believed those circumstances were, this chapter also explores the dual importance of context and choice in accusations against authors of producing and circulating rabble-rousing libels. In brief, where and when a provocative text circulated supplemented considerations of whom a text insulted or abused when officials weighed allegations of libel. To examine these points in more detail, this chapter has recourse to two libel cases found in the imperial archives, against Georg Zeämann and

Theodor Thumm. Lutheran theologians in Kempten and Tübingen respectively, the Imperial Aulic

Council began investigating both of them in 1625 for menacing the public peace with libels.

Together these cases disclose the reasons that imperial officials found certain texts to be more than merely insulting, but actually dangerous to the social and political order. In the final assessment, there was near consensus from imperial officials and the accused themselves that nothing was spectacularly new about Zeämann’s and Thumm’s writings. Their arguments and criticisms against

Catholicism and the papacy were conventionally Lutheran, using rhetorical strategies and themes hallowed already by a century of contests. Times, however, had changed. With those changes, old 56

arguments regained a cutting edge and, in the process, signaled how deeply contingent were interpretations of religious polemic and the dangers they exposed to the social order.

Libel and Popular (Religious) Violence

In Roman law, defamation – whether slander (spoken) or libel (written) – was a variety of injury (inuria) that, by extension, was a form of violence. Victims could experience an injury in two closely related ways, according to Roman jurisprudence. First, an injury resulted from assault; i.e. physical violence to one’s own body, to a close relative or family member, or to one’s property.

Second, an injury resulted from damage to one’s honor and reputation. These two considerations – physical and reputational – were very closely interwoven. Damage to one’s honor could result from both physical assault and verbal altercations, such as name-calling, rumormongering, or making false accusations against someone. Regardless of whether the injury derived from physical or verbal violence, the effect was to render the victim contemptible and hated in the esteem of their

(presumably former) friends and neighbors. Defamation’s least threatening result did not extend far beyond the individual, leaving the defamed person socially marginalized as an object of ridicule and, cut off from the community, he or she might become an outcast. The destruction of the victim’s social “credit,” as discussed at the end of the previous chapter, was potentially devastating to the victim’s livelihood; that is, to their political and financial credit. However, this kind of injury could spread beyond the individual, to include friends, associates, family members, and indeed to the community in a web of disreputability.

From the perspective of imperial authorities, this manner of scandal-inducing discourse had to be avoided and controlled for the sake of preserving social order. In the worst-case scenario, defamation fractured a community, facilitating the escalation of violence beyond individual disputes until entire communities were consumed by mutual recriminations and physical violence. This was 57

the basis for libel law. As Debora Shuger observed of early modern England, libel law “embodies and enforces an image of how people are tied together, or should be tied together, in a social setting” because it “articulates a society’s rules of civility [by emphasizing] obligations of respect, deference, and courtesy owed by members of a community to one another.”78 While a sense of pity for people hard-done by baseless allegations undoubtedly played a minor role in framing the criminality of libel in early modern Germany, libel’s most pressing significance in the Age of

Confessionalization was the way it tore at the Empire’s delicate social fabric, threatening disunity, disharmony, violence, and unrest.

Imperial recesses throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth century consistently noted the seeds of unrest scattered by defamatory writings, contending that the preservation of peace and prevention of violence were the raisons d’etre for bans on libel, even before the Religious Peace instituted the Empire’s expectations for confessional sociability. Regensburg (1541), for instance, objected that libels “being distributed here and there and in more and more places are doing nothing less than undermining and violating the common peace and would like nothing more than to attain all manner of unrest and complication.”79 Speyer’s recess (1570) likewise observed that defamatory books accomplished “nothing good, but only strife, unrest, distrust, and the rupture of all peaceful nature.”80 Imperial legislation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries consistently identified libel

(whether linked directly with heresy or not) as a precursor to communal violence, for individuals did

78 Debora Shuger, Censorship and Cultural Sensibility: The Regulation of Language in Tudor-Stuart England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 140.

79 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Regensburg (1541), § 40. “Ferner haben Wir befunden, dass die Schmähschrifften, so im H. Reich hin und wieder an mehr Orten ausgebreitet werden, gemeinem Frieden nicht wenig verhinderlich und verletzlich seynd, auch zu allerhand Unruhe und Weiterung gelangen möchten.”

80 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §154.

not endure defamatory affronts to their honor with indifference or resignation. There were sources of tension beyond confessional hostilities that fueled neighbors to impeach one another with defamatory caricatures, placards, rumors, and gossip. Arguments over debt, for example, brought people into conflict. Left to stew about unresolved debt, aggrieved parties were known to post defamatory broadsides in public as inducement to restitution. Having asserted the illegality of libels and denounced the disharmony they engendered, the Police Ordinance of 1577 remarked,

It has been reported to us that some lands have been divided by these types of practices and abuses, and that where creditors have not been paid by their debtors or guarantors they have publicly attacked, chastised, bawled, and called them out with outrageous placards or letters. Because these are completely aggravating they lead to many quarrels and misgivings, so that rights and equity can be administered nowhere. Therefore, we completely forbid and abolish those kinds of attacks, and integrate pacts of security by ordering each authority in their territory to henceforth order the suppression of such disputes and seriously punish those who transgress such orders.81

The workaday business of preventing this kind of conflict was not, however, the chief concern of imperial authorities. Rather, during the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries, imperial authorities were concerned with the prevention and suppression of religious invective and violence above all other forms of abuse. Before as after the Religious Peace, the libelous works occupying imperial authorities’ minds were those that incited confessional animosity. Depending on contexts and conditions, these could include sharply worded theological treatises, confessional polemics, satires, and histories.

81 Kaiserliche und des Reichs reformirte und gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), §7. “Wann Wir berichtet worden sind, dass in etlichen Landen dieser Brauch oder vielmehr Missbrauch eingerissen, da dem Glaubiger auff sein Angesinnen von seinem Schuldner oder Bürgen nicht bezahlt wird, dass er derentwegen dieselbigen mit schändlichen Gemähld oder Brieffen, öffentlich anschlagen, schelten, beschreyen und beruffen lässet. Dieweil aber auch gantz ärgerlich, auch viel Zanks und Böses verursacht, darumb es ja in keinem Gebiet, darinn recht und Billichkeit administrirt werden kann, zu verstatten: So wollen Wir dasselbig anschlagen, auch solche Geding und Pacta den Verschreibung einzuverleiben hiemit gäntzlich verbotten und auffgehiben, auch allen und jeden Oberkeiten in ihrem Gebiet, mit ernstlicher Straff gegen dem jenigen, so hernach des Anschlagens sich gebrauchen würde, zu verfahren befohlen haben.”

Even though demands for peace had always gone hand-in-hand with libel proscriptions, the connotation changed dramatically as the Religious Peace augmented norms for civil discourse in the

Empire. With the adotion of confessional pluralism in the Empire, each confession was expected to leave one another at peace. The Religious Peace’s foremost concern was preventing cross- confessional interference, especially interference conducive to violence. The Peace demanded that none of the Catholic estates “do harm to any estate of the Empire on account of the faith of

Augsburg,” and allow the Evangelicals “to enjoy their religious beliefs, liturgy, and ceremonies as well as their estates and other rights and privileges.”82 Likewise estates “espousing the Augsburg

Confession shall let all the Estates and Princes who cling to the old religion [Catholicism]…live in absolute peace and in the enjoyment of all their estates, rights, and privileges…”83 The Religious

Peace aimed to integrate two antagonistic confessions into a single corporate body unified by imperial law. In order to secure the public peace, the imperial estates needed to comport themselves as if they respected the (legal) dignity of the opposing confession in order to secure the protection of their own confession. They were obligated to ban abusive, offensive, and essentially defamatory religious invective. Confessional polemics were thus legally equivalent to libels. However, it was an unsettled question whether controversialist theology, satirical characterizations of other confessions, and confessional dialogues and debates were permissible according to the Religious Peace or

82 Karl Brandi, ed., Der Augsburger Religionsfriede vom 25 September 1555. Kritische Ausgabe des Textes mit den Entwürfen und der königlichen Deklaration (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1927), 36-38 cited in Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 109.

83 Ibid.

whether these too should be regarded as insulting attempts to foment violence in breach of the public peace.84

Regarding confessional violence, we need to revisit an argument offered previously about the effects of the Religious Peace on associations between libel and heresy. The Religious Peace was unable – and in fact did not try – to eliminate confessional bias; it sought only to limit cross- confessional interference and conflict. Censorship legislation after the Religious Peace substituted libel for heresy in an effort to engender enough ambiguity in its standards to circumvent the practical problems raised by religious pluralism. Religious pluralism was a compromise alternative to the hostility that had prevailed between Catholics and Lutherans before 1555. Unfortunately, however, the Religious Peace worked by turning a blind eye to the problem of confessional animosity rather than offering a solution to it, which was consistent with its nature as a temporary, emergency provision.85 Yet the Religious Peace did not create the hostilities that went on to drive confessionalism, as the nature of Christian orthodoxy itself laid the groundwork for suspicion and intolerance. From the days of St. Augustine and his conflict with the Donatists, religious tolerance was not a widely desired attitude or practice in Christianity, where orthodoxy opposed heresy in such stark binary terms that it obliged an understanding of tolerance as “a lax complacency towards evil.”86 By the beginning of the Reformation period, Butterfield continues, “So much of the faith

84 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 112. Creasman noted of the Religious Peace that, “Substantial uncertainty existed, for example, as to the circumstances under which theological writings could be prohibited. Early modern Germany was awash in controversialist theological literature, much of it couched in highly polemical terms. Was religious debate itself unlawful under the Peace of Augsburg? In these matters, the imperial courts typically held that debate over points of doctrine could legitimately occur, but that Lutherans and Catholics could not lawfully hold each other up to abuse and insult.”

85 Heckel, “Der Augsburger Religionsfriede,” 961-1016.

86 Herbert Butterfield, “Toleration in Early Modern Times,” in Journal of the History of Ideas 38 (1977): 573-584; here 573. In this instance, Butterfield was citing Elisabeth Labrousse’s discussion of “Religious Toleration” in the Dictionary for the History of Ideas. Labrousse observed, “Lexicology tells us that up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, the word 61

consisted of the acceptance and interpretation of certain historical assertions, that, basically – since these must be either right or wrong – the belief was more than any mere matter of opinion, and – so far as concerned essential questions – only one form of religion could be true.”87 The predisposition of Christian orthodoxy to intolerance did not make toleration impossible. Regimes of toleration, like the one the Religious Peace created in the Empire, represented a practical “retreat to the next best thing, a last resort for those who often still hated one another, but found it impossible to go on fighting anymore.”88

While the arrangement arrived at in the Religious Peace was a practical solution to religious violence between Evangelicals and Catholics, we can nevertheless see that it aggravated the problems of mutual antipathy and intolerance by encouraging each confession to pursue its own self-identity at the exclusion of other confessions. The rival confessions shared much in their pursuit of identity formation, adopting the same or similar strategies for declaring, implementing,

tolérance had, in French, a pejorative meaning [it signified] a lax complacency towards evil.” Later, on page 575, Butterfield observes that Augustine “seems to hold a key position” in the Church’s formal adoption of persecution as the default position of the Church on religious heterodoxy and dissent. Butterfield argued, “He [Augustine] was converted to persecution, partly owing to the bitterness of his conflict with the Donatists, and partly because he had come to know people who, after enforced conversion, had ended by expressing gratitude for the compulsion that had brought them to the truth. His ideas and his change of ideas were to be of very great importance, since his influence remained so strong for over a thousand years.” I find it hard to believe that Augustine was singularly, or even significantly, responsible for the general Christian attitude towards religious tolerance in the early modern period, even allowing for the possibility of his enhanced significance at the time through Luther. Even so, there seems to have been some consensus, at least in the 1970s among historians of ideas, that Augustine was at least highly representative of what would become the Church’s default position on questions of tolerance and intolerance. Augustine makes his appearance in this vein, too, in Henry Kamen, The Rise of Toleration (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1967), 13-14. Kamen did not see the consolidation of the persecuting mentality in Augustine’s theology per se. Rather he located the responsibility for it in Augustine’s recourse to secular authority in his dispute with the Donatists. Throughout the book, Kamen made clear his belief that the marriage of Church and State was responsible for Christian intolerance through the ages.

87 Butterfield, “Toleration,” 575.

88 Ibid., 573. He further stated, “It [toleration] was hardly even an ‘idea’ for the most part – just a happening – the sort of thing that happens when no choice is left and there is no hope of further struggle being worth while. During the second half of the sixteenth century there were both Catholics and Protestants who became politiques, declaring that persecution (and a national unanimity of the faith) was the ideal but the bloodshed must be ended – the body politic itself was being destroyed, and further conflicts would make the tragedy irremediable.”

and enforcing new standards for intra-confessional uniformity.89 By virtue of the confessionalism that the Religious Peace was incubating, it became incumbent upon the opposing confessions to yield to a binary worldview in a previously unprecedented way. Western Christendom’s contacts with Jews, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and even the heretical groups of the medieval period had prepared no one for the challenges brought by the Reformation, for the crystallization of attitudes that followed, and the limited settlements contemporaries would be forced to negotiate. As

Benjamin Kaplan notes, “other faiths not as inferior forms of Christianity but as Christianity’s opposite, an antireligion embodying everything that true Christianity was against,” meaning moreover that, “Between the two there could be no neutrality and no sane choice.”90 The Empire’s brand of pluralism nurtured confessionalism while, at the same time, the “irreducible dogmatism” enshrined by confessionalism undermined pluralism as a legitimate option, regarding it as an aberrant and intolerable subversion of the Christian order.91

Along with the Christian tendency to a worldview with stark and inviolable divisions – right and wrong, good and bad, truth and falsehood, orthodoxy and heresy, religion and anti-religion,

Christ and Antichrist – confessionalism was assisted and reinforced by another practical consideration: It was easier to secure allegiance than understanding. Once again, Benjamin Kaplan:

89 Wolfgang Reinhard, “Pressures towards Confessionalization? Prolegomena to a Theory of the Confessional Age,” in The German Reformation: The Essential Readings, ed. C. Scott Dixon (Oxford and Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1999): 172- 192.

90 Benjamin J. Kaplan, Divided By Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press, 2007), 35. Kaplan’s notion echoes Butterfield, who wrote, “Some of the clashes in theological doctrine were so extreme that the belligerent parties could not see one another as genuine variants of the same religion.” See Butterfield, “Toleration,” 577.

91 Ibid., 27. The term “irreducible dogmatism” is Kaplan’s, and defined as “a belief that there was something called truth, revealed to us by God and clearly identifiable, and that every other belief was plain wrong.” He explains that such an attitude to truth and falsehood was very much embedded in Christianity historically, to which the confessions were collectively heir.

A positive Catholic Reformation provided a harder goal to achieve than an anti-Protestant, Counter-Reformation, and required more time. The same was true of the Protestant side: reformers found it easier to secure the loyalty of church members than to raise their level of understanding or transform their behavior. Or, to adopt the perspective of ordinary Christians: a person could form a firm attachment to one of the confessional churches without mastering its theological system or accepting all its demands.92 In the process of forming and shaping a distinct “us,” there was no alternative nearly as effective as pointing at one’s opponents and declaring “not them.” These difficulties raised an important, highly complicated question: If the law guaranteed both confessions a right of self-determination, and both sides constructed their self-identities in consideration of the anti-religion of the other, how long could peace last? Additional measures were necessary to keep the peace, delicate as it was.

Libel laws were designed to prevent the production and circulation of mutually aggravating vituperations. Yet books and treatises of the confessional age tended to indulge in combative discourse. Whether these modes of discourse strayed into legally intolerable territory was left to the determination of the estates. Much was dependent on whether, under certain conditions and in certain contexts, a given work might inflame confessional hostilities. Such a work need not have precipitated violence to stand accused of libel and be declared illegal. It was the task of administrators and enforcers of imperial censorship laws to augur the potential consequences of the works they reviewed. The exercise of censorship was necessarily subjective and contingent, a fact we shall explore in detail in coming chapters. For now, it is worth nothing that a work deemed acceptable at one time or in one place could fall under the disapproving gaze of censors at another

92 Ibid., 33-34. The scholarship observing and arguing the halting “progress” of the Reformation in every geographic location into which it was introduced, as judged from reformers’ pained pronouncements of failure and the evidence of parish visitation records noting the persistence of traditional and popular religion, is well known. See in particular Gerald Strauss, “Success and Failure in the German Reformation,” in Past & Present 67 (1975): 30-63; Gerald Strauss, Luther’s House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German Reformation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); Geoffrey Parker, “Success and Failure during the First Century of the Reformation,” in Past & Present 138 (1992): 43-82; Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Raymond A. Mentzer, Jr., “The Persistence of ‘Superstition and Idolatry’ among Rural French Calvinists,” in Church History 65 (1996): 220-233. 64

time or in another place, and there was nothing in imperial censorship law to prevent such subjectivity or contingency. Like the Religious Peace itself, libel laws surrendered to

“dissimulation,” to borrow again Martin Heckel’s useful term; the laws concealed confessional antagonisms rather than resolving them, and encouraged Catholic censors to condemn Lutheran books as libelous because they offended Catholicism, while Lutheran censors could act likewise.

Each confession had the impression that, in suppressing one another for religious reasons, they were protecting their religious identities, preserving unity, and preventing unrest. In so doing, they faithfully abided by the terms of the Religious Peace.

Danger in Context: Where and When

In determining whether a book or treatise had potential to stoke the flames of confessional violence, authorities evaluated the immediate context. Where and when an antagonistic text circulated mattered greatly for determining the nature and degree of the threat it (potentially) posed to the public peace and whether authorities would criminalize it. The major libel cases found in the imperial archives unfolded in charged contexts; namely, in confessionally mixed areas during the initial stages of the Thirty Years’ War. In 1625, the Imperial Aulic Council received notice from

Catholic theologians at Ingolstadt and Dillingen about the writings of two Lutheran theologians,

Georg Zeämann and Theodor Thumm. They pleaded with the Council to investigate and suppress

Thumm’s and Zeämann’s works as libelous. These cases demonstrated the importance of context for deliberations on libels and their capacity for violent consequences. 65

The point of departure for Zeämann came as a response to his treatise, The New Mirror of

Miracles (Newer Wunderspiegel) first published in 1624.93 In this treatise, which was a printed collection of ten sermons he had delivered from his church in Kempten, Zeämann took aim at traditional

Catholic beliefs and practices, especially those Lutheran reformers had contested and evicted from

Evangelical churches. The treatise’s title alluded to its organizing principle: The Catholic belief in miracles was superstitious and un-Christian. To his criticisms of miracles, Zeämann appended associated beliefs and practices revolving around the cult of saints, the potency of relics, and the efficacy of pilgrimages, among other things. These practices had become potent markers of

Catholic identity, used with great rhetorical effect to create confessional cohesion in Catholic propaganda.94 Challenging them was problematic in the confessionally brackish waters of southern

Germany, where Kempten straddled the boundary separating Catholic Bavaria from Lutheran

Württemberg. This represented an important point in interpretations of his treatise, because

Lutheran encounters with Catholicism had provoked it in the first place, and because Catholics interpreted it as a Lutheran taunt in the second.

Zeämann had intended his treatise, like the sermons on which it was based, for his fellow

Lutherans. Zeämann had not produced the treatise in a vacuum, opting to address issues long dividing Catholics and Lutherans for no reason in particular. The relevance of the treatise and the

93 Georg Zeämann, Newer WunderSpiegel / Oder Zehen Wunder: und Walfarts Betha Predigen: Darinn zuvordrist ins gemein die Hauptlehr von Wunderzeichen gründlich erklärt: Darauff ein außführlich Examen oder Musterung der Päpstlichen Wunder / in dreey Hauptpuncten angestellt: Fürters in specie von der verschienen Jars enstandenen Newen Walfart zu der genannten Guten Betha Graab und Brunnen gen Reütin im Haistergäw / und dero Wundern gehandelt / und der Grewel der Verwüstung klärlich dargethan: Und dann die Frag / Warumb bey den Evangelischen keine Wunder geschehen / beantwortet würdt / Dem allein Wunderthätigen Gott zu Ehren…zum Truck gegeben / Durch Georgium Zeaeman D. Pfarrern und Vorstehern der Kirchen deß H. Reichs Stadt Kempten (Kempten: Christoph Krause, 1624).

94 On the relationship between these devotional markers and confessional propaganda and polemic in Catholic Germany, see in particular Philip M. Soergel, Wondrous in His Saints: Counter-Reformation Propaganda in Bavaria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

sermons was grounded in the fact that it addressed recent and nearby events, which compounded the treatise’s potential for stirring up incendiary controversy. The provost of Waldsee, a village about 30 miles northwest of Kempten, had opened the tomb of Elisabeth of Reute in 1623. The so- called “Good Betha” was a fifteenth-century mystic and stigmatic. Although not a saint in 1623 – a holy status not conferred on the Good Betha until 1766 – contemporaries attributed miracles to her at the time of the tomb’s opening. Catholics in the area began their veneration in earnest with pilgrimages to her tomb. The New Mirror of Miracles was a response to this renewed Catholic enthusiasm. Zeämann offered his co-religionists a guide for navigating the tempting and treacherous waters of Catholic beliefs and practices (miracles, cult of saints, and pilgrimages), the appeal of which was perhaps enhanced by the attention paid to the Good Betha by neighboring

Catholics. As the response of Catholics suggested, the Good Betha’s proximity enhanced her popularity as a religious figure, perhaps making her more attractive to Kempten’s Lutheran population. For Zeämann, the veneration of the Good Betha provided a practical opportunity to remind his congregation of the differences between Catholic and Lutheran religiosity, respectively.

Reporting the situation in Calvinist France, Raymond Mentzer, like others before him, noted the frustration of religious leaders with the tenacity of traditional religious practices’ appeal to ordinary Christians. He noted, “Deeply ingrained habits of countless generations were sometimes unresponsive and insusceptible to reform. Even at the end of the century, after forty years of

Protestant instruction and guidance, more than half a dozen men and women [from Ganges, a small

French town with ties to Geneva] stole away to a nearby Catholic village on the feast of Mary

Magdalene during late July [in 1560].”95 The attraction of popular Catholic religious figures, often

95 Mentzer, “The Persistence of ‘Superstition and Idolatry’,” 222.

those saints to whom local or regional devotion had been or remained strong, was the very issue

Zeämann hoped to counter-act in his sermons and subsequent publication of the New Mirror of

Miracles. As Mentzer has also pointed out, votive celebrations and pilgrimages possessed a social aspect that enhanced their charm, which did not directly challenge Protestant religiosity as such:

“People took pleasure in buying and selling goods at the market, dancing, playing card games, and participating in the other collective endeavors that made up the larger celebration of a saint’s feast.”96 Hence, it was necessary for Zeämann and his peers to remind pious listeners and readers that attendance at these festivities was not an opportunity for innocent socializing, but rather that idolatry and superstition had tainted these activities. Participants need not harbor genuine sympathies for traditional religious practices in order to meet the disapproving gaze of religious leaders. Mentzer noted that, in the Reformed tradition at least, there were documented occasions on which Protestant prisoners of war, who Catholic captors had forced to attend mass, were thereafter required to “undergo public ceremonies of atonement before they could be properly reintegrated into the congregation” following their release.97

To Catholic observers, it looked like Zeämann was picking a fight. If shared values were the key to the stability of the Religious Peace, then the language of difference was going to receive the least charitable reading, especially when those on the receiving end of sharp confessional discourse complained to imperial authorities. It was not the case that Catholics avoided quarrelsome discourse. Rather, in this instance, the place, time, and choice of target had made the Catholic case against Zeämann more plausible. In the first place, Zeämann’s timing was poor. While he may have

96 Ibid., 223. See also John Bossy, “The Mass as a Social Institution, 1200-1700,” in Past & Present, No. 100 (1983): 29- 61.

97 Ibid., 221.

believed that conditions required a strong Lutheran voice to shepherd a threatened flock, Catholics believed the opposite; namely that in troubled times it was better for Lutherans to remain silent lest they incite a divisive response. From that perspective, authorities suspected that Zeämann had deliberately goaded his audience against its confessional rival. Because he had challenged

Catholicism with regard to immediate concerns rather than in the abstract, Zeämann’s opponents could argue that he had deliberately provoked confessional hostilities and should be condemned as a libeler. In their initial opinion on the New Mirror of Miracles, the Imperial Aulic Council wasted no time identifying Zeämann’s works as “false, infuriating, and malicious libels.”98 Zeämann’s writings, the Council said, “promulgate mistrust among the estates and might inflame all manner of bitterness in their minds,” the threat of which was aggravated by “these perilous times.”99 This undoubtedly referred to the on-going struggles between the Empire and Lutheran Denmark during the second stage in the Thirty Years’ War. Although the confessional motivations of the actors in the Thirty

Years’ War, and thus the religious timbre of the conflict itself, were dubious, the mutual suspicion the war engendered between the confessions was nevertheless real and pertinent to imperial authorities dealing with provocative texts like Zeämann’s.

Dangers presented by place complicated the perilousness of the times. Archduke Leopold

V, brother to Emperor Ferdinand II, expressed concern about Zeämann in these terms. Leopold’s territory in the Tirol abutted the sites involved in the Good Betha’s veneration, including Reute,

Waldsee, and Kempten. Leopold therefore took an active interest in the case. He celebrated the palpable excitement generated by the Good Betha throughout the area and explained that news of

98 07 April 1625, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 27-30; here fol. 28r.

99 Ibid.

the miracles was already spreading in print, leading to discussions of her beatification.100 Zeämann had turned his attention to the Good Betha spitefully, Leopold contended, pouring cold water over everyone’s excitement. Zeämann substituted bitterness and resentment: His calumnies against the

Good Betha and the Catholic religion were “offensive to the common Catholic laity” and threatened to turn ordinary members of each confession against one another.101 The archduke suggested that the problem’s urgency was a function of location. It was one thing for a book like the New Mirror of

Miracles to spread through Lutheran heartlands, electoral Saxony for example, where Catholics stood less chance of encountering it and being insulted. Kempten and Waldsee, however, were

“precariously situated” in a confessionally mixed area. Zeämann’s treatise circulated through

Lutheran and Catholic communities alike. Since these Catholics and Lutherans “have commerce with one another daily,” the New Mirror of Miracles would foment religious controversy in violation of imperial law and result in “great inconveniences.”102

There was no indication that Zeämann’s treatise had sparked any violence or serious disagreement among ordinary Christians. Again, the objection in 1625 concerned the New Mirror of

Miracles as a potential source of controversy and “great inconveniences.” Yet the fear was reasonable based on recent experiences with popular violence between Catholics and Lutherans in the confessionally mixed region of southern Germany. Beyond Augsburg to the north of Kempten lay Donauwörth, which in 1606-07 had witnessed an episode of popular religious violence, in this case involving Lutheran violence against Catholics for carrying out a public procession.

100 27 October 1625, Archduke Leopold V to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 41-42; here 41r.

101 Ibid.

102 Ibid.

Donauwörth was, like Augsburg, one of a handful of officially bi-confessional imperial cities established by the Religious Peace.103 By the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, few

Catholics remained. In the years leading up to 1606, the city’s Catholics had made little impression on their Lutheran co-residents, having refrained from public displays and processions. Bishop

Heinrich von Knöringen of Augsburg and the Jesuits at Dillingen, who together twenty years later hectored the Imperial Aulic Council into action against Zeämann, induced the Catholic minority in

Donauwörth to reinstitute their St. Mark’s Day procession through the city. The city council was ready to allow the procession, but with the caveat that participants refrain from flying banners.

Unwilling to surrender the banners, Bishop Knöringen suggested that the Imperial Aulic Council mediate the situation. The Council asked Donauwörth’s magistrates to give their side before they handed down an official opinion. In the meantime, however, the city’s Catholics staged the procession with their banners flying. The city’s Lutherans attacked the procession, vandalized the banners, and chased the Catholic participants through the city. The Imperial Aulic Council, in light of these events, declared that the violence represented a clear breech of the peace and Emperor

Rudolf II placed Donauwörth under the ban.

The incident in Donauwörth, or rather its outcome, was a precursor to the Thirty Years’

War. First, Emperor Rudolf II bungled the aftermath, giving the impression of an arbitrary and confessionally biased execution of imperial justice that occasioned a constitutional breakdown and led to the formation of the Protestant Union in 1608.104 Rudolf II issued an imperial mandate against the city’s burghers for their violence, and castigated the city’s council for their inability to

103 Paul Warmbrunn, Zwei Konfessionen in einer Stadt. Das Zusammenleben von Katholiken und Protestanten in den paritätischen Reichsstädten Augsburg, Biberach, Ravensburg und Dinkelsbühl von 1548 bis 1648 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1983); C. Scott Dixon, “Urban Order and Religious Coexistence in the German Imperial City: Augsburg and Donauwörth, 1548-1608,” in Central European History 40 (2007), 1-33.

104 Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 224-227. 71

control their citizens. It was conventional for the leading prince of the Kreis to execute imperial mandates. Donauwörth was in Swabia, and the head of the Swabian Kreis was the Duke of

Württemberg. Instead of permitting Lutheran Württemberg to enforce the imperial ban, Rudolf II defied convention and turned the task over to Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, a noted Catholic whose support Rudolf hoped to secure in the ongoing struggle with his brother, Matthias. Bavaria sent a small contingent of observers to Donauwörth and executed the mandate, delaying to send a more substantial force in lieu of Württemberg’s complaints about procedural abnormalities. Emperor

Rudolf’s resolve began to waver. While the city council waited for a resolution, Donauwörth’s residents rioted against their magistrates and expelled the Bavarian observers. Rudolf II had no choice but to permit Duke Maximilian to occupy the city, which he did with 6,500 troops.

Maximilian assumed control of Donauwörth until his costs were recouped at the city’s expense, as customary. Maximilian’s bill totaled approximately 300,000 fl., which represented an almost impossible sum considering the city’s annual revenue was scarcely more than 15,000 fl.

Donauwörth was transferred to Bavarian control and recatholicized. Because the oft-enigmatic

Rudolf II declined to explain his departure from convention in his handling of Donauwörth,

Protestant estates throughout the Empire, most notably an increasingly confrontational Palatinate, inferred that Rudolf had simply disregarded the Religious Peace and acted with baldly biased intentions.

Donauwörth is instructive for considering Zeämann’s case and understanding how authorities construed a threat from his treatise. The outbreak of popular religious violence was quite rare, despite the near-constant conditions for it that existed in the confessionalized Empire, which inspired much handwringing among authorities. Confessional invective certainly created an 72

“atmosphere of tension and hostility,” serving as fuel for violence, which was why it was criminalized and feared.105 The problem with religious polemics was the way they gained momentum and multiplied. Suppression was not the only way to curb the influence of unwanted ideas. An adjunct strategy for dealing with religious invective was the issuance of counter-invectives.

As Wolfgang Reinhard pointed out, propaganda and polemic accompanied censorship as a means for creating and reinforcing group identities during the Confessional Age. “The theology of controversy was suited to the needs of confessional struggle,” he observed, “Group norms were to be reinforced and the errors of adversaries denounced by constant repetition.”106 This was how pitched polemical battles were staged. The longer and more acrimonious these became, the more they contributed to a situation’s potential combustibility. The injurious effects of a lone polemic were uncertain. Polemical opponents were not usually content to rest idly, however, and they issued screeds in a shrill and scurrilous cacophony.

Jesuit controversialist and theologian Elias Graf addressed the New Mirror of Miracles in a counter-polemic, Georgius Zeaemann Kemptisch Wunderthier.107 In agreement with Archduke Leopold’s underlying assessment, Graf complained about the ill effects of public exposure to Zeämann’s treatise. This was why, according to Graf, he chose to write and publish his own counter-treatise. It was not a decision he made lightly. Graf opened his foreword, addressed to the “good-hearted reader,” by weighing the value of rebutting Zeämann in print. Quoting Proverbs 26 – “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest he shall appear wise in his own sight” – Graf concluded

105 Kaplan, Divided By Faith, 78.

106 Reinhard, “Pressures towards Confessionalization,” 179.

107 Elias Graf, Georgius Zeaemann Kemptisch Wunderthier, Das ist: Erzöhlung etlicher sonderbarer Wunder, welche Georgius Zeaemann Kemptischer Praedicant und Spiegelmacher mit seinem ubelformiertem Wunderspiegel erwöckt, und sich zu einem Wunderthier gemacht hat (Dillingen: Jacob Sermodi, 1626).

that, although not every offensive scribble deserved attention, it was important not to pass over everything in silence.108 Admittedly, there were good reasons to keep silent in this instance.

However, Graf reasoned, it was more detrimental to loyal Catholics to let Zeämann off the hook than to answer him. In the time since 1624, Graf lamented, the New Mirror of Miracles had traveled to

“our Catholic opponents and neighbors.”109 “When one remains completely silent,” Graf mused,

“Satan comes more easily to his intention, which is to ensure that the truth gets pushed back and completely forgotten, while untruth, error, and heresy spread, become well-known and accepted by everybody.”110 “Silence,” he continued, “creates an impression of faint-heartedness in the face of adversity, as if it could not be overcome.”111 It was an odd, although rhetorically effective, bit of reasoning: In order to protect the public from dangerous and defamatory ideas, one must escalate the conflict by drawing further attention to the contested issues and alleged effrontery. Authorities had learned to fear the rebuttal to an argument as well, even if they were otherwise sympathetic to its point of view. In a particularly striking example, officials in the Netherlands banned Johannes Eck’s systematic breakdowns of Luther’s errors because they feared public over-exposure to Luther’s controversies.112

108 Ibid., 2.

109 Ibid., 9

110 Ibid., 7. “Dann erstlichen / wann man gar sollte stillschweigen wurde der Sathan desto leichter zu seinem intent kommen / welches dahin zihlet / daß die warheit zuruck gestossen / ganz vergessen / hingegen die unwarheit Irrthum unnd Ketzereien außgebreittet/ wol bekanndt / unnd von meniglichen angenommen warden.”

111 Ibid., 7-8.

112 Alastair Duke, Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries (London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 32. Duke notes that “as Erasmus observed, a campaign of vilification was likely to advance the very cause it sought to injure, and it was probably for this reason that in September 1525 limiters were forbidden to mention Luther in their public sermons. In the preamble to the third placard against the Lutherianen the continued spread of heresy was blamed in part on the ‘many preachers…who from the pulpit dwell on the errors of the aforesaid Luther and his adherents, as well as the opinions of heretics and heresies already condemned, thereby bringing them again to the notice of people and putting the same ideas into heads which had neither thought about nor heard of these before’.” In this context, in f.n. 24 on the 74

Polemical battles were problematic not only because of their intensity, but also because they were – setting aside for the moment questions of literacy, semi-literacy, and the dissemination of ideas – public “events” that possessed the power to shape public opinion. Given the close associations between defamation and violence, one could surmise that a libeler was guilty of deliberately provoking violence and communal discord by making his insulting insinuations and accusations publicly. In Roman law, the public nature of the offense increased its seriousness.

Thus, the public nature of insulting and offensive discourse signaled its defamatory intentions: By circulating insults openly in print, an author revealed his intention to stir up controversy and upset the public peace. Libelous disputes were usually fuel for violence rather than triggers per se, requiring a spark to set it ablaze. The most common triggers for unrest were public religious displays. It seemed that “beliefs did not offend people as much as behavior – in other words, the more public the act, the greater the ‘offence’ or ‘scandal’ it caused.”113 In the case of Donauwörth, the occasion for violence came with the renewal of a Catholic procession and the use of banners, which increased the procession’s public spectacle. As the existence of Zeämann’s New Mirror of Miracles attested,

Catholics and Lutherans were not always comfortably isolated from one another. In some places, they encountered one another casually and through public religious events. Zeämann delivered his sermons and published his treatise precisely because he suspected that Lutherans might become enamored of popular religious enthusiasm for the Good Betha. News of the celebrations taking place in Waldsee came not only from printed materials announcing the miracles, as Archduke

Leopold suggested, but also from travelers and pilgrims passing through or nearby Kempten from

same page, Duke remarked, “In 1527 a Dutch translation of Johann Eck’s Enchiridion locorum communium adversos Lutheranos was ordered to be burnt at Amsterdam, probably because it indirectly helped to spread Luther’s teaching.”

113 Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 79.

Catholic Bavaria and the surrounding area.114 Although none of these sources made an explicit connection between pilgrimage and violence, nor did the topic of Donauwörth appear in the documents for Zeämann’s case, it nevertheless stood to reason that sermons like Zeämann’s created an atmosphere of hostility and mistrust. The presence of Catholic pilgrims in areas where

Zeämann’s treatise circulated might have ignited open violence in a manner similar to Donauwörth.

In Consideration of the Victim

The possibility for popular violence was dependent upon who was being insulted and abused. Zeämann had attacked holy people, which is to say, according to Catholic observers, he had attacked the honor of innocent people. The Good Betha was not the only one. Bartholomaeus

Immendorff, procurator to the Imperial Aulic Council, bemoaned the fact that Zeämann had not only heaped opprobrium on Elisabeth of Reute but had also traduced St. Francis, St. Bernhard, St.

Boniface, and the Virgin Mary.115 Immendorff concluded that Zeämann’s treatment of Catholic beliefs and practices, particularly those surrounding miracles and the veneration of saints revealed his defamatory intentions when handling Catholicism. More important for this point was the tension, perhaps even the contradiction, Immendorff detected in Zeämann’s treatment of saints and holy people. Zeämann and many of his Lutheran forebears, Immendorff mused, admitted that true

Christian religion still flourished under the papacy, in the churches it had built, and in its traditional esteem for venerable people.116 Was this not deeply malicious calumny, to admit that the essence of

114 27 October 1625, Archduke Leopold V to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 41-42; here 41r.

115 28 July 1627, Bartholomaeus Immendorff to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 148- 168; here 153r-164v.

116 Ibid., fols. 165v-165r. 76

true religion remained intact (to some degree) under Catholicism and then to wildly assail

Catholicism with harsh words and ridicule?

It was noteworthy that the saints featured in Zeämann’s writings predated the Reformation, meaning they were part of a shared Christian heritage for Lutherans and Catholics alike. More than a year after Immendorff had noticed Zeämann’s inconsistency, imperial investigators questions

Zeämann personally about his abusive treatment of holy persons. They induced him to admit that his observations were abusive. Zeämann argued that his sources were chronicles and biographies written by authors with Catholic credentials. He had merely repeated what previous Catholics had already said. Imperial officials were not convinced. Even if his statements about the saints were not technically his own inventions, Zeämann was nevertheless in an awkward position. Did he himself not admit, in his own words, that St. Francis and St. Bernhard were holy men?117 He had. Was it not accepted among Lutheran that innocent people, who had merited the respect of Luther himself, should be spared abusive treatment for polemical ends?118 It was. Considering these admissions, his selection of targets appeared malicious, with no discernible interest other than to impugn the reputations of revered religious figures. This contradicted principles of respect Luther himself had espoused, as his imperial interrogators reminded him. The Religious Peace, too, had enjoined members of each confession to observe a certain degree of respect – whether sincere or not.

Zeämann had violated the terms of the Religious Peace not simply because his Catholic antagonists

117 28 June 1629, Examen und Constitutem deß auff dem Schloss und Bestung Ernberg arrestierten D. Georgen Zeamanns Praedicantens zue Kempten, HHStA, RHR BKR1, fasc. 1629, fols. 124-206; here 140r, Question 12: “Ob wahr sei, daß die Apologia Augustana Confessionis tit. de Votis S. Bernardum und S. Franciscum hailige Männer neme[n].”

118 Ibid., Question 13: “Ob er Zeaemann es nicht für ehrenrührige calumnien und verbottene reden halte, wan[n] man einen unschuldiger weiß einen Dieb, schandtlichen unseinigen närrischen gleißner, garstigen leichtfertigen Epicureerm welcher ein zerlöchtertes gewissen habe, schelten thuet?”

said he had, but because they could point to instances in his writings that transgressed mutually recognized boundaries for appropriate discourse on religious topics. It made sense that, regardless of where his sources came from, abusive treatment of religious figures honored by both confessions

– albeit to different extents – violated shared notions of deference and thereby violated imperial law’s proscriptions of defamation.119 It was just this kind of inconsistency and contradiction, employed frequently for polemical purposes, which fortified the confusion, bitterness, and mutual antipathy of the rival confessions.

The socially dislocating consequences of public defamation were especially pronounced in the case against Theodor Thumm, in which the dignity and authority of the emperor was risked by

Thumm’s evocation of the papal Antichrist. Thumm, a theology professor at the university in

Tübingen, was a battle-hardened polemicist before imperial officials took notice of him in 1625.

Thumm’s activities had probably predisposed his Jesuit opponents to denounce him as a rabble- rousing libeler when the opportunity arose, as it did when he broached the topic of the papal

Antichrist in his polemics. However, in Thumm’s condemnation before the Imperial Aulic Council, his abusive treatment of the papacy was, while regarded seriously, incidental to its consequences for the emperor.120 From the outset, Thumm stood accused of lèse majesté for degrading the dignity of the emperor, while also flattening the Roman Church in his writings. Writing to Emperor Ferdinand

II in March 1625, Bishop Knöringen of Augsburg gravitated repeatedly to Thumm’s assault on the

119 Ibid., 141v, Question 14: “Ob er Zeeman nicht gewüsst, das man von den Hailigen Gottes nit soll solche Gottßlästerliche reden führen?” The idea here was that Lutherans and Catholics alike shared a respect for the saints of God, even if they had different notions of how those saints were integrated into Christian belief and practice.

120 See Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 114-119. Creasman overemphasizes the Antichrist aspect of Thumm’s case, at least from the perspective of the imperial officials who prosecuted him. It was a more important part of his defense, as he and his Lutheran supporters claimed that, because the image of the papal Antichrist was part of Luther’s legacy, it was protected speech under the terms of the Religious Peace of Augsburg. While true, Creasman’s lack of familiarity with the imperial documents means she has missed the extent to which they pressed him for seditious libel, not of the papacy per se, but of the emperor and the imperial dynasty.

emperor’s “supremeness and honor” (Hochheit und Ehre).121 The bishop identified Thumm’s various writings as “intolerable, rebellious, and untrue calumnies and defamations, which are yet forbidden in the Holy Roman Empire and all of its laws,” since they held the emperor, as well as the pope and all Catholic rulers in general, “in the utmost disdain and disservice.”122 Like other Lutheran preachers and professors, Thumm’s “honor-violating and unfounded calumnies” had “run widely and variously beyond the boundaries” of acceptable discourse, fomenting controversy in religious matters that could encourage the Common Man to rebel.123 Bishop Knöringen strained to impress upon the emperor that this was not simply a religious matter. When it came to refuting Thumm and his ilk, he explained, Catholic theologians could hold their own. The problem was that they could do only so much to curb the influence of Thumm’s writings, especially where the emperor himself was concerned. Hence, Knöringen and the Jesuit vanguards of Catholic and Imperial dignity needed imperial authority to deal with the situation and ward off unrest.124

There was less concern than in Zeämann’s case, at least initially, that the resulting unrest would manifest itself as a confessional conflict at the popular level, that ordinary Catholics would be

121 18 March 1625, Bishop Heinrich von Knöringen to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 14-16; here fol.

122 Ibid., 14r. “Waß massen ein Lutherische Praedicant, und zue Tubingen Professor, mit Namen Theodorus Thummius, sich anmasslich, ohne allen reffert und scheueh gelusten lassen, unleidenliche Ehrerürige und unwahrhaffte calumnias und diffamationes, welcheß doch im Heyl. Reich und allen rechten verbotten, zue höchster verschüepfung und nachteil E. Kay. May. Selbst, und aller Catholischen Potentaten Chur: und Fursten, wider die Bäbstl. Heyl. In ofnen truckh zuverfertigen, daß gibt der kurze beyschluss mit mehrerem zueerkhennen, da eß nit villeicht schon zuevor E. Kayl. Mayt. Vorkhom[m]en, und rüssendt ist.”

123 Ibid., 14r-14v. “Weil dann, sowohl dißer, allß mehr andere Tubingische Praedicanten, und Professors Theologi, ein zeithero in Ihren ofentlichen schrifften mit dergleichen hochen: Ehrverletzlichen, und ungegründten calumnien gar zue weit und vihl, extra terminus der sonst in glaubnuß Puncten controvertierenden materien, außreissen, bey dem gemeinen Mann aber wenig Hülff oder nichts außtragen mag…”

124 Ibid., 14v. “…wan schon solche mißhandlung ihnen in scriptis widersprachen oder retorquiert warden, in bedencken dergleichen entweders ihnen gar nicht vorkhombt, oder kein fürstendig und enervierlichen nachtruckh hat, so diser Zeith zue khuettung allerhandt mehrerer unruehe im Römischen Reich in allweeg vonnötten sein will.”

pitted against ordinary Lutherans. Instead, the primary concern expressed here was the Lutherans in particular, but perhaps simple Catholics too, would attempt to overthrow sovereign Catholic princes and magistrates for religious reasons. It was one thing to lambast the papacy, as Thumm had undeniably done, calling the Roman pontiff the “tyrant, thief, and pirate of Europe,” who by means of “his fraudulence and impostures cheats innumerable people” out if their money during jubilee celebrations, for example.125 It was entirely another thing to impute criminal activity to the emperor and other Catholic sovereigns. Religious identity and the dignity of secular rulers, including the emperor, were irrevocably linked. Thumm had made the Catholic rulers and estates of the Empire complicit in the alleged tyranny of the papacy by the very fact of their commitment to Catholicism.

In the logic employed in Thumm’s case, attacking Catholicism meant an attack on all Catholics, while an attack on the Roman Church’s leadership was equivalent to an attack on secular rulers in the Empire who maintained their Catholic identities.

Fears of “public” consumption of Thumm’s texts and the bitterness they might inflame in the Common Man seem exaggerated prima facie. Literacy was not high and Thumm’s writings had not set the publishing world alight with demand. Yet there was marked concern with the prevailing conditions in the Empire in 1625 – as there had been with Zeämann – and how people might receive Thumm’s texts. Hand wringing over threats to the public peace brought about by religious controversy, reaching as they may seem in hindsight, was justified when religious controversy potentially extended to questions of imperial legitimacy. As had been the case with Zeämann, the

Imperial Aulic Council’s opinion on Thumm’s alleged wrongdoing took into consideration fraying

125 Ibid., fol. 14v. “Weilen dann dise Sachen nit Religioniß, sonder unerweißliche oftenliche famos Sachen…alß da Ihr Päbstl. Kayl. außtruckenlich genant warden, ‘impostor insignis, qui sitiat et anhelet per nundias Jubilai omne omnium aurum et argentum; qui sit Tyrannus, Latro et Praedo Eurpaeus violentusq[ue] insidiator qui fraudulenter suis fraudib[us] et imposturis decipiat innumerum hominum numerum etc.’”

confessional relations, which the bi-confessional orientation of the areas in which Thumm’s works circulated had complicated. The Council agreed that Thumm’s (and Zeämann’s) books threatened the public peace; indeed, it was a significant factor in characterizing his books as libelous. Moreover, the perilous state of the Empire increased the possibility that these defamatory books would excite mistrust and resentment.126 The Council recommended that the Emperor take swift action against these “false, fictitious, and malicious libels” because, unless silenced, they would “spread mistrust among the estates, inflame all kinds of passions, and cause bitterness” as Knöringen had argued.127

The old twinning of civic and sacred community that had abetted the Reformation in the first place now abutted a newer combination of confessional and political allegiance that the

Religious Peace reinforced and the process of confessionalization continued to encourage. As

Heinz Schilling observed, following the initial thrust of confessionalization in which the confessional churches took the lead, “European jurists and politicians discovered ways to harness confessionalism’s autonomous power and bind it to the interests of the state.”128 The Religious

Peace reoriented the religious basis of high imperial politics, transitioning away from a conception of

126 07 April 1625, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Ferdinand II, fol. 28v.

127 Ibid. It is worth remembering that the Council was here addressing the alleged libels of both Thumm and Zeämann, and therefore classifying both of their works as libels expressing the same manner of threat to the religious peace and political order of the Empire.

128 Heinz Schilling, “Confessional Europe,” in Handbook of European History, 1400-1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, vol. 2, eds. Thomas A. Brady Jr., Heiko A. Oberman, and James D. Tracy (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995), 641-681; here 655. See also Joel F. Harrington and Helmut Walser Smith, “Confessionalization, Community, and State Building in Germany, 1555-1870,” in The Journal of Modern History 69 (1997): 77-101; here 85. Arguing that confessionalization had both centrifugal and centripedal forces, the authors of this review article observed the intensity of the religious and political interests brought about by confessionalization and state building. Of the disastrous results of aggressive confessionalization, they argue, “Some scholars have blamed religious elites – particularly Catholic Jesuits and Calvinist preachers – for the escalation of tensions during the late sixteenth century. Others point to the fundamental inablity of religious or politial elites to compromise on questions of religion. But the disastrous results of increased confessionalization – foreign policies driven by a combination of religious fervor and dynastic rivalries – are obvious to all historians, for these policies ultimately culminated in one of the most devastating wars ever fought in central Europe.”

the emperor’s role as guardian of Catholicism toward his role, after 1555, as protector and preserver of the Religious Peace itself. The transition was only partial, however. The Habsburg emperors had not rescinded their responsibilities as guardians of Catholicism, either in the traditional sense or in the sense engendered by the Religious Peace. It was nearly – if not completely – impossible to separate the imperial from the dynastic as far as the Habsburg emperors were concerned. Unlike

Western European states at that time, the imperial court was not a center for national unity under the sign of confessional uniformity. For the Habsburgs, the imperial title was a source of prestige but not strength.129 Candidates for the imperial throne were selected because they had the resources at hand to execute the obligations of their office, which they possessed by virtue of their dynastic holdings. In other words, the Empire’s electors expected the emperors to use their dynastic holdings to fund the Imperial Court, finance imperial institutions, and provide for defense for the

Empire. In other words, as one historian has noted, “imperial prerogatives conferred executive authority but supplied few means to put decisions into effect.”130 Although the arrangement could be problematic for a host of reasons, the religious implications were less controversial before the

Reformation drove a wedge between the confessional allegiances of (some of) the imperial estates and the imperial dynasty.

Imperial concerns obligated the Habsburg emperors to observe and enforce confessional neutrality. Yet they were under no such obligation regarding their dynastic lands, where the

Religious Peace guaranteed them the right, as princes, to determine their own religious policies and to pursue their own agendas without interference. Unfortunately, for Thumm, and Zeämann to a lesser extent, the two spheres of activity (imperial and dynastic) were easily elided, especially under

129 Volker Press, “The Habsburg Court as the Center of Imperial Government,” in The Journal of Modern History 58 (1986): S23-S45; here S23.

130 Wilson, Thirty Years War, 20. 82

the rule of Emperor Ferdinand II. By 1627, the Imperial Aulic Council had more arrows in its quiver than in 1625 when Thumm’s defamations were first reported. Thumm had supplied some of these arrows himself during his headlong rush into polemical battle with his Jesuit accusers in the intervening years. In 1625 Thumm published a German-language polemic entitled A Well-founded

Christian Report on the Question of Whether an Evangelical Christian Should in Good Conscience Repair to the

Papist Religion at the Insistence of Worldly Authority, in which it is Clearly Demonstrated from God’s Word and

Established Writings that the Papacy Most Harmfully Errs in Nearly All Articles of Faith, Unjustifiably Deranges the Three Principal Estates of Christendom in Violation of God’s Order, and with Its Teachings Against all of

God’s Commandments Encourages a Reprobate and Punishable Life.131 The treatise improved the imperial case against Thumm as a seditious libeler. In the first place, Thumm wrote for an audience much broader than the one for which he intended his Latin-language polemics, fanning the flames of worry about the treatises potentially subversive outcomes. The Well-Founded Christian Report was not an academic disputation intended for a small circle of learned initiates, nor was it a polemical screed directed at a named person about whom few people would know or care. It was directed at an amorphous entity that early modern Germany referred to as the Common Man, that oft fretted over class of non-noble subjects and citizens perpetually teetering on the brink of rebellion.132

131 Theodor Thumm, Christlicher wolgegründter Bericht / Auff die Frag: Ob ein Evangelischer Christ / auff begehren und nötigen weltlicher Obrigkeit / mit gutem Gewissen / zur Päpstlicher religion sich begeben könde? […] Zur Warnung und Trost allen Evangelische[n] under dem Pabsthum / sonderlich aber in under- und ober Oesterreich / Böhmen / Merren / in der undern- und obern Pfaltz / Marggraffschafft Baden und andern Orten betrangten Christen (Tübingen: Philibert Brunn, 1625).

132 On the “relentlessly male” imagery of the Common Man in Reformation rhetoric and propaganda, see Lyndal Roper, “'The Common Man,' 'The Common Good,' 'Common Women': Gender and Meaning in the German Reformation Commune,” in Social History 12 (1987): 1-21. Roper’s is a fascinating tale of the contrasts between der gemeine Mann and die gemeine Frau in Reformation propaganda rhetoric, where the common man was “the community’s representative and the Reformation hero,” at least initially, the common woman, in popular parlance, was a prostitute “frequently aligned with the Reformation’s enemies, the loose-living, lecherous priests and monks” (2). Whatever its rhetorical value in polemical and propagandistic Protestant discourse, authorities, both Catholic and Protestant, regarded the “Common Man” as an object of fear, a potential rebel capable of social and political upheaval, as evidenced by the forgoing and ongoing discussion of laws predicated on controlling the Common Man and his access to potentially inflammatory and 83

Whether real or imagined, these fears multiplied with the decision to target a specific audience with the treatise’s subtitle, making the tome more provocative and more likely to excite popular resentment. Indeed, the subtitle left little to the imagination. Thumm offered the Well-

Founded Christian Report as “a warning and consolation to all Evangelicals living under the papacy, especially those in Lower- and Upper Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, in the Lower- and Upper

Palatinate, the Margravate of Baden as well as oppressed Christians in other places.” It is worth noting that full responsibility for the subtitle may not have been Thumm’s alone. Gunther Franz observed that a different printer, Johann Alexander Cellius, produced an edition of the Well-Founded

Christian Report in Tübingen as early as 1621.133 According to Franz, the 1621 edition’s subtitle lacked the later edition’s detail, presenting itself to Evangelicals in Austria and the Palatinate-

Neuburg.134 Transferred to the care of a new printer, Philibert Brunn, the 1625 edition not only shaded details into the subtitle but also included a new preface, the first line of which promised “six reasons why each and every pious Christian should reject the papacy and regard it as a monstrosity.”135 Sadly, I cannot confirm Franz’s observations about Cellius’ 1621 edition of the

disruptive ideas. Much of this fear came from rash of late medieval peasant rebellions that peaked with the German Peasants’ War but continued thereafter. The most important historian of peasant Reformation and peasant rebellion in the late medieval and early modern world remains Peter Blickle; see “Peasant Revolts in the German Empire in the Late Middle Ages,” in Social History 4 (1979): 223-239; The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants’ War from a New Perspective, trans. Thomas A. Brady Jr. and H. C. Erik Midelfort (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985); “The Criminalization of Peasant Resistance in the Holy Roman Empire: Toward a History of the Emergence of High Treason in Germany,” in The Journal of Modern History 58, Supplement: Politics and Society in the Holy Roman Empire, 1500-1806 (1986): S88-S97; “Communal Reformation and Peasant Piety: The Peasant Reformation and Its Late Medieval Origins,” in Central European History 20 (1987): 216-228; Obedient Germans? A Rebuttal, trans. Thomas A. Brady Jr. (Charlottesville: University of Virigina Press, 1997).

133 Franz, “Bücherzensur und Irenik,” 154.

134 Thumm, Christlicher wolgegründter Bericht. From the title page: “Zur Warnung und Trost allen Evangelischen unter dem Pasthumb, sonderlich aber in Oesterreich und Pfaltz-Newburg beträgten Christen gestelt.”

135 Ibid. “Es sein christlicher, lieber Leser vornämlich sechs Ursachen, umb welcher willen ein jeder frommer Christ dem Papstthum absagen und dasselbe für eine Scheusel halten soll.”

Well-Founded Christian Report, and cannot therefore carry out a comparative audit of the 1621 and

1625 editions.136 With that in mind, a few things can be said on the assumption that nothing changed about the treatise between 1621 and 1625 besides its paratextual elements, namely its subtitle and perhaps its preface.

It was possible that, in bringing out a new edition in 1625, the new printer Brunn felt compelled to update the subtitle and preface in order to make it more provocative and appealing.

Printers and publishers altered texts in order to increase their market profile, sometimes for ideological reasons and sometimes for financial reasons, sometimes with the participation of the original authors and sometimes without the authors’ foreknowledge and permission.137 It was possible that changing the subtitle and adding a new preface was not Thumm’s doing, although it just as easily could have been. Apart from the fact that the treatise caused him trouble in 1625, the situation for Protestants in certain Catholic territories seemed to reinforce his arguments in the Well-

Founded Christian Report (assuming the text of 1625 did not vary substantively with that of 1621).

Things had changed since the treatise first appeared in 1621, as the situation had become more urgent for Evangelicals in areas being recatholicized after White Mountain. While changes to the

1625 edition possibly increased the interest of a broadly threatened Lutheran audience, they also risked bringing unwanted punitive attention to the treatise’s author. The recent participation of

136 As of July 2015, the VD17 contains no record for Cellius’ alleged edition of the Report in 1621, or at any other time. Searches by the name of the author (Thumm), the name of the printer (Cellius), and the title of the treatise all return with the same information: The first listed edition of the Well-Founded Christian Report came from Philibert Brunn in 1625. A search of Google Books returns the same information. An online search of the catalog of the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel returns the same information as well. For his part, Franz maintains that both editions are available in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, which a search of the catalog confirms as accurate. Thumm himself acknowledge that 1621 was the first year of the Report’s appearance, as noted below.

137 Historians of book and print culture generally refer to the multi-step, collaborative process of creating a “book” from a “text” as “diffused authorship.” See especially Anthony Grafton, The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe (London: British Library, 2011); Roger Chartier, The Author’s Hand and the Printer’s Mind: Transformations of the Written Word in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge and Malden: Polity, 2014). 85

several of the subtitled territories in the Bohemian Revolt combined with the newly sounding drums of war from Lutheran Denmark to create a markedly charged impression; there was little to prevent a reading of this treatise as an invitation to rebellion. This was precisely how imperial court officials read it.

Apart from the Well-Founded Christian Reports paratextual changes, the basis of the text was sufficient to pique Catholic observers. It was nearly impossible for imperial officials to divorce

Lutheran arguments about Catholicism’s errors from underlying suggestions of the bankruptcy and illegitimacy of secular Catholic rulers. In this instance, Thumm had implicated Emperor Ferdinand

II in the denigration of the papacy. Thumm pushed the suspicions of Catholic authorities as far as he could in the Well-Founded Christian Report. Most strikingly, Thumm offered an extended discussion of all the ways that the papacy had violated the sixth commandment of the Decalogue concerning adultery. The discussion of adultery was attended by accusations of other reprehensible sexual activities that violated God’s order, such as prostitution, sodomy, and incest. It was not only that the papacy systematically violated the commandment, but that it was also the beneficiary of these unacceptable practices. Thumm listed occupants of the papal throne who were themselves sons of prostitutes, who had sired children with prostitutes and concubines, or who were reputedly sodomites. Thereafter, Thumm argued that this pattern of aberrant sexual proclivities had predisposed the papacy to support other violations of the sixth commandment, namely with regard to incest, which the papacy was known to allow among named secular rulers throughout Europe.

The pope granted King Philip II of Spain, for instance, a dispensation to marry his fourth wife,

Anna of Austria, who was also his niece. That these two were Habsburgs of the Spanish and

Austrian lines, respectively, might have been bad enough on its own, although it was more provocative for the rulers of Spain since their son King Philip III was henceforward identified as a product of incest. Thumm did not stop there, however. Instead, he wrote, “By means of papal 86

approval and dispensation, Philip, King in Spain, took his sister’s daughter into matrimony, as

Archduke Charles of Austria had also done” (emphasis added).138 This was a thinly veiled reference to

Archduke Charles II of Austria, who had married his niece, Maria Anna of Bavaria, with whom he had a bevy of children, including reigning emperor Ferdinand II.

While it had the tacked-on appearance of a parenthetical thought, Thumm could not expect his readers to draw a benign conclusion from his reference to Charles of Austria. It was true that the great dynasties of Europe, including the Habsburgs, had entered into incestuous marriages from which children resulted. Some of these children, like Ferdinand II, went on to occupy places of power and prestige. The practice was neither unique to Habsburg or Catholic dynastic policies.

Several Lutheran powers at the time also had tangled family trees. In other words, that dynasties engaged in incest was hardly shocking. Imperial officials took exception to the context in which

Thumm had presented this information, even though it was true, and how Thumm suggested it should be used; i.e. to resist efforts at recatholicization. Thumm observed, as part of his demonstration that the papacy was a “monstrosity” worthy of rejection, “against the sixth commandment, [Catholics] endorse illegitimate divorces, although they approve or allow marriages in such cases that are forbidden according to both Godly and secular laws and rarely punish prostitution, adultery, incest, or sodomy.”139 It was in this context that Thumm offered Ferdinand

II’s parentage as substantiating proof for his claims about papal depravity and the necessity of resisting it. As it turned out, depriving the papacy and the Roman Church of its religious authority could not happen without also delegitimizing the political authority of the emperor, who remained a steadfast Catholic. The two facets of the 1625 edition of the Well-Founded Christian Report – its

138 Thumm, Christlicher wolgegründter Bericht, fol. 329.

139 Ibid. fol. 16r-16v.

targeting of recent participants in the Bohemian Revolt and its pointed usage of Ferdinand II’s parentage – combined to leave a charged impression with readers.

Thumm had thrown himself recklessly against the Religious Peace of Augsburg, insofar as the Well-Founded Christian Report encouraged resistance to Catholicism in the Habsburg dynastic lands, where they were legally free to determine their own religious policies without outside interference. By the time Ferdinand II acceded to the imperial throne, the Catholic revitalization of the Austrian Habsburg lands had already advanced considerably. Compared with his immediate predecessors – most notably Emperor Maximilian II, who had conscientiously observed confessional neutrality for the sake of peace, and Emperor Rudolf II, who lacked the mental wherewithal to act one way or the other – Ferdinand II represented “the restoration of an emperor with the will and the ability to impose an unequivocally Catholic confession on his inheritance.”140

Ferdinand II’s religious commitments were forged by the confessional incongruities of the

Habsburg dynastic lands: Despite the House of Austria’s loyalty to Catholicism, the Habsburg dynastic lands were not a Catholic idyll. By the 1570s and 1580s, Austrian lands were flush with

Protestants. With Catholic numbers dwindling and Protestant nobles lobbying for formal recognition, the Habsburgs negotiated their own compromise with Protestants, offering them toleration in exchange for paying back a substantial portion of Habsburg debt. The Protestant

Austrian nobles had purchased the religious freedoms and privileges granted to Protestant German princes de jure by the Religious Peace of Augsburg. Their situation was considerably more precarious than their German counterparts’ as a result.

140 Elaine Fulton, Catholic Belief and Survival in Late Sixteenth-Century Vienna: The Case of Georg Eder (1523-87) (Hampshire and Burlington: Ashgate, 2007), 140-141.

Not far into the seventeenth century, the Habsburgs started recatholicizing their lands. They refused to extend new privileges and honors to Protestants, even though the Protestants contributed more than four million florins toward the amortization of Habsburg debts by the seventeenth century.141 The Austrian Habsburgs began using their prerogatives as archdukes to promote and ennoble Catholics and stocking the provincial estates with loyal Catholics over time.142 Ferdinand of

Styria was more successful than many of his relatives and forebears in this regard. He terminated

Protestant institutions that lacked explicit privileges, exiled rowdy Protestants, and encouraged others to emigrate if they found the atmosphere too stifling for their religious sensibilities.143 Yet, for the most part, the Habsburg emperors avoided the provocation of German Lutherans, unwilling to translate their recatholicization efforts from the dynastic lands to the Empire. The initial course of the Thirty Years’ War altered the landscape considerably, however.

Ferdinand II’s successes against the Bohemian rebels and Danish Lutherans permitted him to attempt recatholicization in the Empire in much the same manner as he had accomplished it in his dynastic lands. He did not create any new institutions, but tweaked the personnel of existing ones to his advantage, redistributing titles and lands, bringing loyal imperial subjects into his hereditary lands, and integrating loyal Austrian nobles into the Empire.144 By the mid-1620s, at the same time imperial attention came to Thumm and Zeämann, Ferdinand II’s confidence had peaked and he was increasingly open to the influence and advice of militant contingents around him who

141 Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 59.

142 Ibid., 68-70.

143 Ibid., 70-72.

144 Ibid., 356-357.

urged a more robust and less forgiving approach to Protestantism in the Empire.145 He regarded his

Protestant opponents as rebels, whose sedition justified not only the forfeiture of their lands and titles to him to fill as he saw fit, but also justified the revocation of Protestant political and religious privileges more generally. It appeared that the drive to recatholicize the Empire and the Habsburg dynastic lands, to form a “solidly Catholic political and social elite,” predisposed Ferdinand II to equate Protestantism with religious dissidence, and religious dissidence with treason.146

The troubled times of the Thirty Years’ War imbued critiques of the papacy with fresh venom and fresh possibilities to incite unrest. Nobody believed that Zeämann’s or Thumm’s critiques were particularly fresh or clever. Zeämann’s polemical antagonist, Elias Graf, dismissed

Zeämann’s arguments as hackneyed and derivative. In his polemical response to Zeämann’s New

Mirror of Miracles, Graf accused Zeämann of glibness in his use of “new” to describe his work.

Perhaps Zeämann did not know the meaning of the word, Graf suggested, since the topic of saints and miracles was debated long ago, and many times since, by Lutherans and Catholics (the latter of whom had, in Graf’s estimation, demonstrated the superiority of their position). “Fifty and some odd years ago” (das vor etliche und fünffzig Jaren) Graf recalled, a preacher in Strasbourg named Hans

Marbach published a booklet which, no less than Zeämann’s treatise, raised the hackles (die Hechel) of Catholics with its “insulting, poisonous, and blasphemous discussion” of the miracles of saints, the veneration of their relics, and pilgrimages to their tombs and graves.147 These objections were answered, Graf claimed, by Dr. (Johann) Jacob Rabus, court preacher for Duke Albrecht of Bavaria,

145 Robert Birely, S.J. Religion and Politics in the Age of Counter-Reformation: Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S.J. and the Formation of Imperial Policy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982).

146 Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 357. For a helpful discussion of the links between treason and religious dissidence, see Kaplan, Divided By Faith, 102-103, 115, and 123-124.

147 Elias Graf, Georgius Zeaemann Kemptisch Wunderthier, 3-4.

who “championed” (verfochten) these Catholics practices and traditions.148 Why waste one’s time refuting Zeämann when there was nothing that Rabus had not already answered? Graf’s justification for meeting Zeämann’s challenge consisted in the “new moves” (newes motiuum) Zeämann employed against the Good Betha.149 It may have been old wine in a new bottle, but the bottle should be emptied and then smashed for good measure.

Thumm’s supporters maintained that the Religious Peace of Augsburg protected criticisms of the papacy as part of Lutheranism’s theological heritage.150 Thus, the libel case against Thumm was a plot to silence Lutheranism in the Empire. Their wariness about the motivations of Emperor

Ferdinand II and his officials is forgivable considering the emperor’s commitments to recatholicization. Moreover, claiming that calling the Roman pontiff the Antichrist was protected speech under the terms of the Religious Peace followed the logic of the confessional age.

Regardless, it was bound to be dubiously persuasive to Catholic authorities who did not argue that

Thumm’s evocation of the papal Antichrist was his most serious offense. Recall that Thumm urged his readers to look on the reprobation of the papacy as a call for them to resist the reintroduction of

Catholicism. Among his target audience, judging from the subtitle, were those who had rebelled during the Bohemian Revolt. Quite apart from considerations of Lutheran rights to call the pope the Antichrist in print, Thumm had violated the deal struck at Augsburg in 1555, famously formulated thereafter under the rubric cuius regio, eius religio. Meddling in the religious affairs of sovereign rulers was strictly forbidden since such meddling was easy to interpret as an incitement to rebellion.

148 Ibid., 4.

149 Ibid., 9.

150 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 115.

Eventually, the specter of rebellion hovered over Thumm and Zeämann not only as an abstract potentiality when their writings were connected to an actual uprising. In 1626, only a year after Knöringen and Forer brought Zeämann and Thumm to imperial attention, the peasants of

Upper Austria rebelled against their Bavarian stewards. Following a clash with Bavarian soldiers in

May 1626, the rebellion gathered some 40,000 men from the provincial militia along with a small contingent of nobles.151 The rebel army, led by a merchant and innkeeper, enjoyed early success against experienced troops from the Catholic League and the imperial army. Duke Maximilian of

Bavaria called on Field Marshall Pappenheim, a hero of White Mountain, to subdue the rebellion.152

Following four battles with the peasant forces, whose two leaders had died beforehand in minor skirmishes, Pappenheim broke the rebellion, killing some 12,000 rebels and arresting one hundred ringleaders in the process.153

The rebellion militated against the recatholicization efforts of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, to whom Ferdinand II had temporarily ceded control of Upper Austria in 1623 as collateral for the amortization of debts incurred from military campaigns waged on Ferdinand’s behalf during the war.

With Ferdinand’s blessing, endeavors to promote Catholicism included an attack on Evangelical infrastructure, forcing Evangelicals to shoulder the weight of debt owed to Bavaria, and making

Catholic allegiance a formal requirement for citizenship. The Bavarians expelled Evangelical pastors and teachers from the territory in 1624, levied a one-million-florin fine in 1625, and made it clear that Evangelicals were no longer welcome in Upper Austria. They were free to convert to

151 Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 412.

152 Ibid.

153 Ibid., 412-413.

Catholicism or quit the territory altogether.154 Upper Austria was rife with Lutherans, who had proven difficult to roust before. By the end of the sixteenth century eighty-five percent of Upper

Austrian nobles, three-quarters of the urban population, and at least half the peasantry were

Lutheran.155 This came at a time when Melchior Khlesl worked assiduously on behalf of Emperors

Rudolf II and Matthias to expel Protestants and reintroduce Catholicism in both Upper- and Lower

Austria.156 His successes were halting and uneven. The Thirty Years’ War, and Emperor Ferdinand

II’s tactics for recatholicization, had been more daunting to Protestants because the links between

Protestantism and treason served as a rod to beat them back. Nobles, for example, were abandoning the faith to show support for the dynasty, converting to avoid punishment and to share in the fruits of Ferdinand II’s victories.

The Upper Austrian rebellion in 1626 focused on the Bavarian recatholicization process and the grievances it precipitated among Lutherans who refused to choose between conversion and emigration. Notwithstanding personal piety, which made converting on a whim inherently revolting, there was little for peasants and burghers to gain from conversion. Emigration to other Protestant lands was an appealing alternative. But it was laden with difficulty, too. Nearby Lutheran territories frequently granted asylum to their wayward coreligionists, and “regarded [them] as poor persecuted

Christians worthy of sympathy.”157 The implicit expectation was that the immigrants would return

154 Ibid., 411-412.

155 Ibid., 59.

156 Ibid., 359-360. Wilson points out that the process of recatholicization in this period proved costly to the Habsburgs, since exiles and emigrants took what property and wealth they possessed with them. Although the fact that these people abandoned their lands facilitated Ferdinand II’s redistribution of it to loyal families, it nevertheless came with an estimated loss of seven percent of the population of the Habsburg dynastic lands, who took their money and property out of Habsburg reach. For example, the one hundred-fifty people who departed Vienna after 1623 took an estimated 300,000 fl. worth of assets with them.

157 Ibid., 360-361. 93

home as soon as conditions allowed, however, making their sojourns temporary and their chances for equal citizenship slight, although there were exceptions to this general trend. This predisposed the peasants and burghers of Upper Austria to fight rather than relent to pressures of conversion or emigration.

According to the rebels, authorities were over-concerned with recatholicization. Efforts to isolate and strip away Protestant privileges and infrastructure had deprived communities of their autonomy. It also deprived them of good government: Both Ferdinand II and Maximilian of

Bavaria were so preoccupied with recatholicizing that they ignored peasant indebtedness, faltering commerce, and the fact that the entire economy had foundered on hyperinflation generated by the war.158 In the course of their negotiations, the Upper Austrian rebels maintained that they would resolve the debt owed to Bavaria, which had brought Maximilian into the picture, if Ferdinand restored the religious toleration that had prevailed until only recently.159 Nothing came of these negotiations. Recatholicization continued after the uprising’s suppression.

The conditions – both historical and material – were ripe for rebellion. While there was no monocausal explanation for the rebellion, confessional tensions were certainly a filter through which feelings of resentment and hostility were distilled. Polemical works, religious invective, rumors, and gossip eroded confessional relations. Although it is difficult to assess how far any given work contributed to the outbreak of violence, works like Zeämann’s New Mirror of Miracles and Thumm’s

Well-Founded Christian Report, without sounding new trumpets, re-popularized older ideas by tethering them to contemporary struggles. Indeed, their arguments were probably more explosive than they

158 Ibid., 411.

159 Ibid., 412-413.

had been in their original settings. Thumm, for example, had revived a version of Protestant resistance theory. He argued that Evangelicals had a right and a duty to resist the demands of a sovereign when it threatened the true faith and church. The Protestant version of the resistance theory had enjoyed its high point before the Peasants’ War in 1525, but continued to hold sway in

Evangelical thought before the Religious Peace. In its mature formulation, Protestant resistance theory applied exclusively to princes and magistrates as defenders of faith and order against a potentially tyrannical sovereign (the emperor), whom they elected and who therefore possessed no hereditary right to rule.160 In this way, following the Peasants’ War in 1525, Lutheran electors, princes, and magistrates articulated a resistance theory that allowed them to style themselves, rather than the emperor, as protectors of the faith and guardians of the imperial constitution. Yet the theory was regaining its appeal in the seventeenth century, especially in lands where Catholics ruled significant numbers of Lutherans. There was renewed interest from peasants and burghers in

Austrian hereditary lands during the recatholicization efforts of Melchior Khlesl and Emperor

Ferdinand II, although it was in tension with the agreement reached in the Religious Peace that subjects did not have the right to religious self-determination, only their princes did.161 To suggest that subjects could, or should, resist the will of their sovereign for religious reasons was illegal under the Religious Peace as seditious libel, since it depended on attacking and abusing the confessional allegiance of the sovereign.

Although there was nothing definitive tying them to the Upper Austrian rebellion, Thumm and Zeämann’s mutual antagonist, Lorenz Forer, nevertheless speculated that they had prompted the rebellion through the attention they brought to the incestuous relationship of Ferdinand II’s

160 Ibid., 47-48.

161 Ibid., 42-45.

parents.162 In his polemical indictment of Thumm and Zeämann, titled Par Nobile Fratrum, Forer recalled the two instances in which Thumm insulted Ferdinand II by questioning his parentage: In the Well-Founded Christian Report and in his earlier treatise, De Reformatione B. Lutheri, in which Thumm had accused generations of popes of being practitioners of black magic. From these allegations,

Forer suggested, there were “seditious corollaries,” although he declined to make a serious allegation and remained committed instead to raising rhetorical questions. “What wonder, then, if after reading this the peasants in Austria had rebelled?”163 The tenth chapter of the treatise meditated on the question of whether Thumm, in his own words, actively encouraged armed action among the peasants as a symbol of their commitment to the faith. Thumm, in his Apologia, had denied provoking armed resistance, but acknowledged his admonishment of Lutherans to preserve their faith under adverse conditions. Incredulous, Forer responded that, “It is one thing to act wickedly, and other to confess it,” which strongly intimated his belief that encouraging dogged preservation of faith was equivalent to advocating resistance at any costs, such that admitting the former confirmed the latter.164

Sure enough, Thumm had written that taking up arms against one’s lord was inappropriate when he changed confessions. The admission came from his Apologia, which appeared after his

Jesuit opponents had taken him to task for the potential consequences of his abuses and insults.

“Did you not write to the Austrians: Archduke Charles of Austria celebrated an incestuous marriage?” Forer

162 Franz, “Bücherzensur und Irenik,” 155.

163 Laurenz Forer, Thummius & Zeaemann: Par Nobile Fratrum, divis hominibusque infestum, et Iniuriosum: a Laurentio Forero SS. Theologiae Doctore et Societatis Iesu Sacerdote castigarum (Dillingen: Caspar Sutor, 1628), 98-99. “Ex quibus consequitur Ferdinandum II. Imperatorem, Regem quoque Hispaniarum, Archducem Leopoldum, cum omni consanguinitate Austriaca, esse secundum Thummium, ex illicito coniugio, ex infando, & lege diuina prohibit incest progenitos, quam veto seditiosa corollaria hinc possint deduci, aliis iudicandum relinquo. Quid ergo mirum, si lectis his rebellauerint Rustici in Austria? Si iussa Caesarae detrectarint?”

164 Ibid., 121. “Aliud est nequiter agere, aliud id fateri.”

asked in response.165 He pressed further, asking “What follows from this if not that his sons were the product of an illegal and illegitimate union?” while making it clear that “Among these sons

Ferdinand II is numbered.”166 Forer argued that Thumm’s writings, which endeavored to delegitimize the Habsburg dynasty in Austria, gainsaid Thumm’s insistence that he had not condoned religious violence against the emperor. Forer stated,

Is this not your voice saying that the commandments to which the Austrians are compelled by their Catholic faith are antichristian, impious, and tyrannical commandments? That under the circumstances they are wickedly repressed and unjustly obliged to violate all the commandments of the Decalogue? To theft? To murder? To perjury? To magic? To sodomy? To idolatry? To hypocrisy? To whatever other crimes of wickedness and iniquity? To all of those things, Thumm says in his book, Ferdinand desires to induce his subjects through the Catholic faith. Is this admonition not seditious? Is this not a sounding of the trumpet to incite the Austrians to take up arms? What are the simplest peasants to think? Who would not reason thusly: How can this man born from incest be my lord? How can he rule me by law? Why should I submit to his orders? When Thumm, therefore, tries to persuade the peasants in his book that the Emperor is born from incest, and that the commandments he gives are repugnant to God, does he not persuade the peasants to oppose the Emperor?167

Forer’s chapter focused on possible readings of Thumm’s arguments. It raised the potential repercussions of these arguments in the event that the targeted audience, in this case a significant number of Protestants in Austria, took Thumm’s admonitions to heart and decided to act. It was a significant blow to Thumm (and Zeämann) that, following the peasant uprising in 1626, their

165 Ibid., 122. “Nonne tu scripsisti ad Austriacos subditos. Carolus Archdux Austria incestuosas nuptias celebrauit?”

166 Ibid. “quid hinc consequitur, nisi eius filios illicito & illegitimo connubio esse (Thummio Iudice) progenitos? Inter hos filios autem etiam Augustissimus Caesar Ferdinandus II. numeratur.”

167 Ibid., 122-123. “Nonne tua vox est, mandata illa, quibus Austriaci ad fidem Catholicam adiguntur, esse mandata Antichristiana? Impia? Tyrannical? Quibus premantur inique subditi, & iniuste impellantur ad violationem omnium praeceptorum Decalogi? Ad furta? Ad homicidia? Ad periuria? Ad magiam? Ad sodomiam? Ad idololatriam? Ad hypocrisim? & quidquid est nefandorum scelerum & flagitiorum? Ad quae Omnia, ait Thummius in suo Libello, induci homines per fidem Catholicam, cui addictos cupit subditos suos Ferdinandus. Annon ista est seditiosa exhortatio? Annon hoc est classicum canere? Ad arma corripienda inflammare Austriacos? Quis enim simplicissimorum Rusticorum, audita tali fistula, non igniulos concipiat? Quis non sic apud se ratiocinetur: Iste, quem habeo, est ex incest natus meus Dominus? Quo igitur iure mihi imperat? Aut cur solicitus sim, ut eius iussis obtemperem? Cum ergo Thummius in suo libello Rusticis persuadere conetur, Caesarem ex incest natum, Deoque pugnantia mandata dare, parum referre, si se Rustici Caesari opponent?”

opponents could come closer to answering the question of potential outcomes with something more definitive.

Thumm flatly denied responsibility for the Upper Austrian revolt. He had two exculpatory observations in the Apologia, which Forer endeavored to discredit. First, Thumm claimed that he had “recently read a document in which the peasants of Upper Austria explain the reasons for their actions,” and he was pleased to report that the peasants passed over his book in silence.168 Forer was incredulous at Thumm’s gullibility. “Do you believe,” he asked, “everything said by people found to be faithless to their legitimate lord?”169 The Upper Austrian peasants were rebels and guilty of treason, and were therefore inherently untrustworthy.170 Forer suspected Thumm of dissembling, for his claim to innocence was weak, beside the point, and proved nothing. On the one hand, it seemed to Forer that Thumm’s self-defense made excuses for the rebellious peasants, which was unacceptable. It was the emperor’s right, after all, to make Catholicism the official religion of his subjects, “no less than the Lutheran princes in their duchies, who too can make their subjects, if there be any Catholics, convert to Lutheranism or force them to leave the principality.”171 If the

Upper Austrians disagreed with the will of the emperor, then why did they not move to another, more amenable country rather than rebel? On the other hand, Thumm’s treatise had urged

Evangelicals in the Habsburg lands, including Upper Austria, to resist recatholicization, which was

168 Theodor Thumm, Apologia Theodori Thummii, S. S. Theologiae Doctoris, Contra Iniustas Criminationes duorum Jesuitarum, laurentii Foreri, & Casparis Lechneri, De Crimine Laesae S. Maiestatis, aliasque adversum se evulgatas atroces iniurias (Tübingen: Dietrich Werlin, 1627), 50. “Legi nuper scriptum in quo Ristici superioris Austriae causas sui facti exponent; verum non Libellum meum Germanicum, sed longe alias rationes Iesuitis bene cognitas praetendunt.”

169 Forer, Par Nobile Fratrum, 125. “Qui semel perfidi deprehenduntur erga Dominum suum legitimum, illis in caeteris quid credas?”

170 Ibid.

171 Ibid.

tantamount to urging them to resist the will of their legitimate lord and prince. According to Forer, the reason for the Upper Austrian rebellion was no mystery: Their rebelliousness was a matter of their hatred for the Catholic religion and their love of the Evangelical religion.172 Thumm taught such hatred for Catholicism in his treatise, which was undeniable. He could not so easily avoid culpability for contributing to the idea that the emperor’s religious identity was illegitimate and loathsome.

Thumm’s second claim to innocence relied on timing: The Well-Founded Christian Report first appeared in 1621, when no one could have predicted the outbreak of rebellion in Upper Austria five years later.173 Again, Forer was unconvinced. All conflagrations have roots buried in times of peace.

Thus, it was no excuse to claim ignorance of, and deny responsibility for, the potential outcomes of previous rabble-rousing. “It is as if the thief or robber has been declared free from guilt,” Forer opined, “because no one has been able to predict their crimes.”174 Indeed, Thumm’s admission improved the rhetorical force of Forer’s argument about Thumm’s culpability. Allowing that his involvement in the outbreak of violence in 1626 was indirect, he could not flatly deny his influence on the events. He impressed suspicion and mistrust upon Evangelicals in Austria regarding their

Catholic sovereigns, and urged them to resistance. Forer concluded that,

Even if there was nothing seditious in the mind of the Austrian peasants, your book made the situation more harmful. It served as the channel through which the poison was delivered, as the seeds from which future pestilence was scattered. Such things require time to mature and bear fruit. They have only recently erupted. For a long time, the spark hides and grows until the flames leap. The peasants paid attention to your book and therefore

172 Ibid., 125-126.

173 Thumm, Apologia, 51. “At Scriptum meum Germanicum primum anno 1621 typis fuit excusum, et Austriacis inscriptum, quo tempore nemo motalium hunc timultu[m] diuinare potuisset.”

174 Forer, Par Noibile Fratrum, 127. “Quasi vero fur aut latro ideo a crimine liber pronunciandus sit, quia prius nemo scelera illorum potuit divinare?”

they developed a hostile attitude against Emperor Ferdinand. What wonder, then, if this hatred has finally broken into the open?175

Even if the link between Thumm and the rebellion was not robust, the plausibility of such a connection revealed the importance of historical conditions and the choice of target for how threats to the public order were determined. In an age of war and popular unrest, imperial authorities would not countenance the contestation of the emperor’s credentials and sovereignty.

***

Official interest in libels came primarily from the threat of violence they engendered.

Imperial authorities tended to identify libels according to practical considerations, namely by evaluating a text’s capacity to incite popular (religious) violence. This capacity depended a great deal on context: When and where a provocative, polemical, or controversial book circulated and into whose hands it was likely to end up were variables in the matrix for weighing accusations of libel.

There was a concomitant opportunism involved in prosecuting libel cases: As the twin cases of

Zeämann and Thumm demonstrated, the recently victorious imperial party could find potential enemies in every Protestant they came upon. It was comparatively simple in the mid-1620s to convince imperial officials that their recently tightened grip on power was tenuous and that the emperor was vulnerable to a fifth column of Protestants spreading dissent and unrest, both in the

Empire and in his dynastic lands.176 In such an atmosphere, it was not necessary for a text to be

175 Ibid., 127-128. “Deinde sit ita: Nihil tunc seditionis gesserint in animo Austriaci Rustici. Eo nocentior tuus libellus fuit; per quem velut per canalem illis venenum instillasti; & quasi semina secuturae pestis sparsiti. Talia tempus requirunt ad maturescendum & fructum generandum. Eruperunt nuper. Diu saepe latitat scintilla & gliscit, donec flammam exiliat. Lectitarunt Rustici libellum tuum, & hostilem inde animum adversus Caesarem Ferdinandum exsuxerunt. Quid ergo mirum, si odium hoc tandem erupit in apertum?”

176 Kaplan, Divided By Faith, 115. Kaplan observes, “Religious dissenters were also perceived as potential, if not actual, traitors. People assumed that their enmity extended from a state’s official church to the state itself and to the entire established order of which the church was part. […] What made dissenters so frightening, ultimately, was their position as outsiders within the community. Operating covertly, they could attack without warning where the state was most vulnerable. Worst of all, they could conspire with external foes. They constituted a potential fifth column, a Trojan 100

linked with an actual outbreak of violence in order to be condemned; only that it had the potential to contribute to violence in the present or the future. Unfortunately for alleged libelers like Thumm and Zeämann, the lumbering pace of imperial bureaucracy left their cases unresolved long enough for a peasant rebellion to erupt in Upper Austria, for which Thumm’s treatise in particular could be plausibly (if not specifically) blamed. The early modern prioritization of threats of violence was closer to the Roman legal understanding of defamation and libel than to the modern one, which emphasizes the dynamic of truth and falsity in an allegation in lieu of its effect per se. The next chapter discusses the nature and qualities of libel, and its relationship to truth, falsity, and intention in an effort to explain the breadth of interpretation to which libel was open in the early modern period.

horse whose soldiers could throw open the gates, literally or figuratively, to foreign armies. This kind of enemy has always evoked paranoia.” 101

Chapter Three The Nature of Libel

Using examples of libels reported to – and in some cases pursued by – the Imperial Aulic

Court in Vienna, the following chapter investigates the nature of libel as a form of literature. All of the cases shared in the fact that authorities regarded them as libelous. What else did they share, and where did they differ? By determining their common features, we can come to a more nuanced and accurate understanding of what early modern censors meant when they branded a text “libelous.”

The last chapter asserted that, when authorities labeled a text libelous, they were swayed by that text’s potential for upsetting peace and inciting violence. The prediction that violence was a potential outcome was influenced by a reading of the text according to extra-textual considerations, such as context and other factors. Were there any intrinsic qualities that texts deemed libelous shared? Accused libels shared a common characteristic, even though they differed according to a stunning variety of other features and characteristics: They were malicious. This chapter argues that libel was a form of literature determined by the malicious intention of the author. The issue for imperial authorities consisted in proving malice in an alleged libel. As this chapter suggests, demonstrating malicious intentions required culling together different features of a text. The most important one, as argued in the last chapter, was its potential for violence, but there were other important features demonstrative of an alleged libel’s maliciousness too. First, there were considerations of truth and falsity, which evaded easy detection in the age of confessionalization.

Second, there were signals embedded in the presentation of texts, namely the use of anonymity and pseudonymity. This, too, presented authorities with difficulties, since academic disputations and confessional polemics used anonymity and pseudonymity for rhetorical purposes. Common recourse to accusations and counteraccusations of defamation in academic writing, usually for 102

rhetorical purposes, also complicated matters. Libel was a constructed category of written expression, resistant to straightforward classification by genre or style.

Malice, Truth, and Falsity

Intentionality was just as important for determining the potential libelousness of a text as were considerations of time and place. As discussed above, the time and place of a libel’s production and distribution, along with the author’s choice of target, could be marshaled as evidence of an author’s intention to disrupt the peace. This consideration gets to the heart of what early modern authorities thought about the nature of libel. Libel’s defining characteristic was malice: A libeler deliberately damaged the reputation and honor of his victim; i.e. the libel’s intention was to cause harm. This was evident in the Carolina’s brief treatment of the subject in 1532, which referred to the libeler as a “malicious backbiter” (boßhafftig Lesterer).177 How did authorities prove malicious intention in libel cases? The answer was both more and less complicated that it appears at first glance. Authors suspected of composing and distributing libels did not usually declare their malicious, defamatory intentions. Authorities, therefore, constructed their cases from clues embedded in the libels themselves. Determining whether the claims of an alleged libel were true or false was an obvious place to start. Libelous literature and false accusations have long had an intimate relationship. In later Roman law, libels developed a narrower connotation as false accusations; although defamation remained associated with insult, ridicule, contempt, and derision without a specific relation to truth or falsity per se.178 Libel and falsity had a strong connection in the

177 “Straff schrifftlicher unrechtlicher peinlicher Schmehung,” in Constitutio Criminalis Carolia (1532), art. 110.

178 Shuger, Censorship and Cultural Sensibility, 82-83. Shuger here discusses the 1562 monograph, Ad leges de famosis libellis...commentarius, written by François Baudin, a celebrated representative of the sixteenth-century historicist school of Roman law. She identifies Baudin’s as the only early modern account of Roman law's regulation of language. 103

Carolina as well, where libels “contrive the truth” (mit Wahrheit erfunden würden) and were categorized as “untrue” (unwahrhafftige Lesterschrifft).179

Early modern notions of libel – as maliciously intentioned modes of written discourse – had a confused relationship with truth and falsity. The main problem was that, although falsity had a prominent presence in considerations of libel, falsity was not necessary to the early modern understanding of libel. Recall Theodor Thumm’s writing about Emperor Ferdinand II’s incestuous parentage. Thumm was accused of spreading seditious libel on this account, even though it was true that Ferdinand’s parents were closely related. When it came to accusing someone of libel, distinguishing the truth and falsity of a claim were not strictly obligatory. Alongside the Carolina’s characterization of libels as “untrue,” they were also called “unjust” (unrechtlicher), “baleful” (böse), and “irreverent” (Lesterschrifft). None of those epithets depended irrevocably on falsity. The Carolina further stated that, even where a dishonoring accusation was true, “the announcer of such disgrace should still be punished by virtue of the law and the mensuration of the judge.”180

The issue is best illustrated, I believe, using an admittedly anachronistic comparison. In the

United States, defamation has a more fundamental relationship with truth and falsity than its early modern counterpart does. The intention to harm another’s reputation is not sufficient to prove defamation by itself. Rather, defamation is defined as the deliberate use of false information, or the making of a false accusation, intended only to damage someone’s reputation. Even then, however, the falsity of the information alone is not sufficient to demonstrate defamation; it must be shown that the alleged libeler knew, or could be reasonably expected to know, that the information is false.

179 “Straff schrifftlicher unrechtlicher peinlicher Schmehung,” in Constitutio Criminalis Carolia (1532), art. 110.

180 Ibid. “Und ob sich auch gleichwol die aufgelegt Schmach der zugemessen That inn der Wahrheit erfünde, soll dennoch der Auβruffer solcher Schmach nach vermög der Recht und Ermessung des Richters gestrafft werden.” 104

As a crime, libel can best be summarized in contemporary America as the deliberate use of information known to be false in an effort to do malicious harm to another person’s reputation. As we shall discuss in more detail, in the Empire during the seventeenth century, authorities maintained that true information used maliciously was as defamatory as the use of false information.

“So that the Common Man Can See What Sort of Tree Bears such Harmful Fruit”

In addition to the fact that truth and falsity had no necessary relationship to libels, truth and falsity had a deliberately tangled relationship in rhetorical writing. A closer look at the only libelous pamphlet to make a strong enough impression on imperial authorities to be preserved entire in their records illustrates this. In 1615, on his pre-fair visitation of Frankfurts shops and stalls, imperial book commissioner Valentin Leucht uncovered an anonymous pamphlet offering its readers two

“trustworthy” accounts of recent Jesuit misadventures.181 The first lampooned the turpitude and perversion of Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, then-leader of the Roman Congregation for the Index and

Inquisition. The second story told readers of Jesuit misadventures in the German village of

Molsheim, where they allegedly staged an educational play to indict Martin Luther posthumously, with disastrous results.

The pamphlet first chronicled Cardinal Bellarmine’s wanton libidinousness, depravity, and corruption. His sexual appetite was insatiable. The pamphlet alleged that he had fornicated with

181 Anonymous [Georg Zeämann?], Zwo newe Zeitungen / die ist ein Ehrenkräntzlin der Jesuiter / das ist / Historischer Bericht / wie der Jesuit Robertus Bellarminus, gewesener Cardinal zu Rom / unseliger Gedechtnus / in seinem Engelkeuschen Leben mehr nicht dann sechzehenhundert zwo und vierzig Weibspersonen beschaffen / dieselben hernach mehrer theils sampt den Kindern / durch Schwert / Gifft / Feur und Wasser jämerlich weis verderbt und umgebracht / wie solches sein eigen Beichtbüchlein bezeuget / und durch seinen Secretarium Iohan de Montgado offenbart / und den Jesuitern zu ehren und gefallen / an statt seiner Leichpredig / mit Beschreibung seines schröcklichen Tods publicirt worden: auch wie es Im auff seiner Walfart zu der Marien de Santo Loretto wunderlich ergangen. Der ander ist / wie die Jesuiten ein Comoedi zu Moltzheim agirt und gehalten / und Herrn Doctorem Lutherum durch einen Teufel zerreisen wöllen: aber der rechte erschöckliche Teufel ist kommen / und hat eine Jesuiten im Stucken zerrissen (Basel[?]: Ludwig König[?], 1614). The archives in Vienna hold a copy of the pamphlet in the records, see HHStA, RHR BKR1, fasc. 1613, 1614, 1615, 1619-1624, fols. 8- 9.

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1,642 women during his lifetime. Undaunted by his vow of celibacy, Cardinal Bellarmine was unconvinced, too, by the inviolability of holy matrimony, bedding down 563 married women with whom he committed adultery 2,236 times. The famous cardinal did not discriminate against the inexperienced, cultivating a taste for maiden daughters of noble houses. More grave than the scale of Bellarmine’s sexual conquests was the manner in which he abused his office to dispose of women he no longer wanted. In order to keep his proclivities hidden, he would “secretly judge and execute” his former lovers by ordering them drowned in the river Tiber under the cover of darkness,

“especially when he discovered that they were pregnant.”182 Bellarmine once attempted to seduce two nuns, who managed to resist his advances despite his normally beguiling use of “magic.”183

Having been rebuffed, the cardinal “accused them of being witches and fiends and, on his urging, brought them to trial so they could be burned in silence, and thus be executed in innocence.”184 His delight for Epicurean pleasures was not limited to his sexual encounters. He maintained palatial living quarters, and displayed a fondness for showy eccentricities. According to the pamphlet,

Cardinal Bellarmine had a predilection for the company of barnyard animals – goats and sheep

182 Ibid., fol. 8v. “Uber dise hat er bey seinen Lebzeiten bey 1642. Weibspersonen beschlaffen / unnd Unzucht mit ihnen getriben / darunter auff die 563. Ehweiber gewesen / mit solchen auff die 2236. maln die Eh gebrochen / und darunter 18. Welcher Grauen unnd Hern Weiber / 15. von hohem Geschlecht / die er Junckfrawen befunden / und durch Zauberey (wie er dann derselben Kunst stattlich erfaren) zu wegen un[d] zu seinem Willen gebracht: die andern aber ledige Personen gewesen / welche er Junckfrawen erkant / dieselben hinfürter jederweilen genossen: die andern aber / so er keine Junckfrawe[n] befunden / bald mit Gifft und Schwert heimlich richten und umbbringen / unnd bey Nächtlicher weil in die Tyber werffen lassen / sonderlich wa er vermerckt / daß sie geschwänger waren.”

183 Ibid. “Also hat er auff ein zeit zwo Nonnen / welche von gräflichem Geschlecht gwesen / beschickt / dieselbe zu beschlaffen angesprochen und gebetten: da sie ihm aber solches abgeschlagen / hat er sie zu nhtzingen begert / doch gleichwol nichts erhalten. Als er nun solches zum öfftern tenirt unnd versucht / auch seine Zauberkunst / doch vergebenlich / an ihnen probirt / aber nichts bey inen in keinerley weg erhalten können / hat er gedacht / sie auβ dem weg zu reissen / damit solch sein Begeren nit von ihm offenbaret werde.”

184 Ibid. “Hat derowegen dieselben als Hexen und Unholden angeben / und auff sein instendiges verklagen / sovil zu wegen gebracht / daß sie bede in der stille verbren[n]t / und also unschuldiger weis hingerichtet worden.”

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especially – and he kept his mewling companions resplendently outfitted with jewels and precious metals.185

The pamphlet was careful to emphasize that Bellarmine’s lifestyle was not fair compensation for his service to God. His lasciviousness was indicative of his spiritual corruption and moral bankruptcy, which was his due reward for serving a similarly venal Roman Church. Divine retribution was inescapable, and the pamphlet stressed that Bellarmine suffered for his prurience and impiety. A deep spiritual sickness plagued Bellarmine. Looking for relief, he undertook a pilgrimage, wrote down his sins in a confessional booklet, and sought absolution from a priest.186

The scandalized priest reacted badly to Bellarmine’s confession. He first “crossed and blessed himself” and then proclaimed in astonishment that he could not “believe that the earth could endure such a man.”187 The priest denied Bellarmine’s pleas for absolution, proclaiming instead that “he did not believe that God in heaven, let alone a man, could forgive such sins.”188 The priest threw the pamphlet to the ground at Bellarmine’s feet and departed his company in disgust. Bellarmine was inconsolable. Having received no solace from his confessor, the shallowly penitent Bellarmine turned to an image of the Virgin. For three hours, he kneeled in prayer before the image. Not even the mother of God could tolerate his sight and, the pamphlet reported, “the image turned its back on him.”189 Only then did the once-proud cardinal know that, as a consequence of his grievous

185 Ibid. “Dann er hat stetigs auff der Ströh stehen gehabt vier artliche Geiß / die er zu seinem Willen gebraucht / und jedermahlen mit dem allertröstlichsten Geschmeid / Edelgestein / Silber und Gold / geziert / vor sich bringen lassen.”

186 Ibid.

187 Ibid., 9r.

188 Ibid.

189 Ibid. “Hierauff hat sich Bellarminus gewendet zu dem trostlichen Marienbild / kniend drey Stund lang creuzweis davor gebettet: das Bild aber hat sich hinumb gewendet / und ihm den Rucken gekehrt…”

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misdeeds, “he could no longer hope for God’s grace.”190 He fell into a miserable illness and died wailing and whimpering in the knowledge that God and Christ had forsaken him. Thereafter his tormented spirit was trundled to perdition pathetically on the back of a winged billy goat.191

At the end of this story, the moral came: Cardinal Bellarmine had “died with the renunciation of God and His Son, Christ, in a miserable and absurd manner and has been eternally corrupted. For as these types of people live, so also they die.”192 This was not, however, a simple story about the soul-destroying consequences of self-degradation and wanton immorality. It offered a confessionalized lesson about the evils of the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits bade the reprobate condition evident in the tale about Cardinal Bellarmine. “The Jesuits should all be horrified and frightened at this horrible and frightening example,” lectured the pamphlet, and should “desist from their false, contrived, and self-serving hypocrisy, and not defy the Divine Majesty so obdurately.”193

Neither was this a good-hearted warning to members of the Society of Jesus that they had best change their ways. Indeed, it was a lesson about the need for “us” (Evangelicals) to avoid and reject

“them” (Jesuits and Catholics) as far as possible: “But they are children of the Devil, and that is why

190 Ibid. “…darüber er dann hefftig erschrockhen / und kein Gnad mehr verhofft / also darüber inn schwere Leibskranckheit gefallen / und gefallen / und angefangen gentzlich zu verzweiffeln / ist auch in solcher Verzwiflung jämerlich gestorben.”

191 Ibid. “Dann er stettigs unnd gebröllt wie ein brüllender Löw / auch wie er sein Stund gewuβt / vorgesagt / wie er auff ein höllischen fewrigen Geiβbock darvon gefürt warden / inn der Höll Oberster und Päbsten / Bischoffen / Mönchen / Nonnen und Pfaffen seyn müβ.”

192 Ibid. “Ist also mit verlaugnung Gottes und seines Sons Christ / ellendig unnd unsinniger weis gestorben und ewig verdorben: dann wie dise Leut leben / so sterben sie auch.”

193 Ibid. “An disem greulichen erschröcklichen exempel sollen billich alle jesuiter sich entsetzen und erschrecken / von ohrer falschen erdicten tragenden Scheinheilligkeit abstehen / und der Göttlichen Maiestet nit so halsstarrig sich widersetzen.”

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they honor him and he sees them through their difficulties. God protect us from such people and an end like theirs.”194

The other story concerned the Jesuits, too, but instead of concentrating on how the wicked lives of members precipitated God’s abandonment of them, it focused on how Jesuit attempts to degrade Martin Luther’s memory met with divine retribution. In July 1614, the report began, Jesuits in Molsheim, a German village in Alsace near Strasbourg, organized a public play. The play was supposed to remind the audience that Luther was a source of evil, evidenced by the discord he had caused. Luther was offered as the embodiment of disharmony, as if the Reformation was merely a projection of Luther’s personality. To emphasize the point, the Jesuits mused that Luther was so raucous and intractable that even the Devil found him insufferable: “Even resting in hell [Luther] gives the Devil no peace, and perpetrates all kinds of discord and rebellion, so that the Devil neither can nor will tolerate him.”195 Luther was a scourge who not only tormented the living with his vile legacy, but was so thoroughly wicked that his presence in hell irked the Devil. Surely, he was one of the most loathsome figures in Christianity.

To dramatize this point, Molsheim’s Jesuit community arranged a public trial for the deceased reformer. Among twelve demonic apostles, an actor styled as Luther occupied the place of

Judas Iscariot, betrayer of Christ.196 During the play’s climax another actor, playing the devil, was

194 Ibid. “Aber sie sind Kinder deβ Teufels, darumb ehren sie ihn / und er ehret sie in ihren leisten Nöhten auch erzehlter massen. Got behüt uns für solchem Volck und ihres gleichen End.”

195 Ibid., 9v. “Die Ander Zeitung. Im nechst abgewichenen Iulio dieses 1614 Jars haben die Jesuiter zu Molzheim ein comoedi agirt un[d] gehalten / darinn fingirt und geticht / gleich wie Herr Doctor Lutherus selig auff Erden grossen Streit allenthalben in der Welt angericht / Fürsten und Herrn zusamen gehezt / deß wegen dann er ewig verdampt sey / und in der Höll sitze: Also hab er in der Höll noch kein Ruh / und lasse die Teufel mit seiner religion nit zu friden / richte allerley Uneinigkeiten und Auffruhren an / deβwegen dann ihn die Teufel nit dulden könden oder wöllen / vil weniger solt er auff Erd geduldet werden.”

196 Ibid. “Haben deßwegen ein Gericht von Teufeln besezt / darinn 12 teufelische Apostel verordnet / unter welchen auch Lutherus an Judas Iscarioth statt gesessen…” 109

supposed to appear and “tear Luther into pieces, as one should do to all the Lutherans on earth,” disgorging a sack of blood and viscera hidden in the clothing of the false Luther, evoking the gut- spilling Biblical scene of Judas’s suicide for dramatic effect.197 When the play was staged and the climactic moment arrived, a real devil appeared and “[grabbed] in great fury the very devil who is supposed to maul Luther and [tore] him to pieces in full view of the people,” his heart and guts falling to the feet of shocked spectators.198 The pamphlet noted that similar, though less grotesque, mishaps were familiar occurrences when Jesuits staged symbolic protests of Luther and the

Reformation. A few years before the incident in Molsheim, Jesuits staged a comedy at Constance, in which they tried to burn an effigy of Jan Hus. Instead, they succeeded only in starting a large fire.

In Vienna, the Jesuits burned Luther in effigy but, again, “righteous God let his righteous judgment be seen” and the Jesuits reduced their “very expensive and princely college” to ashes.199 The object lesson of these stories was certainly not the importance of fire safety. In these instances, the stories targeted Evangelicals directly, ridiculing the crude – and dangerous – oafishness of the Jesuits to highlight the righteousness of Evangelical faith and religion.

The pamphlet was a libel par excellence insofar as it was unmistakably malicious. The author used dubious (almost certainly false) information to vitiate Cardinal Bellarmine’s reputation and

197 Ibid. “…und nach gehaltner Anklag und gegebnem Urtel / Lutherum inn stuck zerreisen sollen (als solte mans auff Erden alle Lutherischen also Machen) welcher arme Luther dann unter den Kleidern mit Ingeweld und Darmen voller Blüt gefülle gewesen.”

198 Ibid. “Als nun der Teufel den Luther iezund verreissen wöllen / so kompt mit grossen Schrey oder dreyzehend erschrckliche Teufel herbey / und greifft mit grossem Grimm den jenigen an / so den Luther zerreissen sollen / und zerreiβt denselben in Angesicht deß Volcks zu stucken / daß ihm das Herz und Ingwied vor die füß gefallen / welches mit grossem Schrecken / zittern unnd zagen von dem umbstehenden Volck augenscheinlich gsehen.”

199 Ibid. “Also vor etliche Jarn habe sie ein Comedi zu Constanz gehalten / und den Johan Hussen noch mahln verbrennen wöllen: aber wie ein grosser Brandschad darauß entstanden / ist meniglich bewußt. Deßgleichen zu Wien vor achte Jahren haben die Jesuiter den Luther auch einmal verbrennen wöllen / es hat aber gerechte Gott auch dismal sein gerecht unsträfflich Urteil sehen lassen / und durch den Luther ir ganzes hochköstliches ja Fürstlichs Collegium in brand gesteckt / und un grund verbrandt.”

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criticize the Jesuit Order and the Roman Church. It shows also that libels, and the malice at their hearts, had a complicated relationship with truth and falsity. The issue was not that the information it presented was false per se. Rather, it consisted in the manner which the author employed these fictions and how readers were supposed to interpret them. The pamphlet against Bellarmine certainly offered readers exaggerations or outright falsehoods, using grotesque imagery and fantastic elements to pique readers’ interest. Entertainment was not the only purpose or value of libels, however. Writing of libel in pre-Revolutionary France, Robert Darnton observed, “The libeler presents it as authentic although he may dress it up by rhetoric to obtain certain effects – shock, horror, amusement, anger, indignation, or other responses from the readers he implicitly addresses.”200 Libels of the sort discussed above were not journalism in the modern sense, even though it presented its contents as “news reports” (Zwo Newe Zeitungen). It did not mean that their authors regarded them as merely entertaining – but otherwise benign – fictions; they were efficacious too. They aimed for trustworthiness and authenticity, which were not necessarily synonymous with objectivity and truthfulness. Such reports as the one against Cardinal Bellarmine and the Jesuits were later (in France) called “anecdotes,” which in then-contemporary usage was less bound to stories based on hearsay than in modern usage.201 More reliable than hearsay, anecdotes were based on previously unknown, hidden, or secret information that was predictably scandalous or outrageous.202 Information about Bellarmine’s misdeeds came from the discovery of his disregarded

200 Robert Darnton, The Devil in the Holy Water, or The Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 266.

201 Ibid. Darnton points out that eighteenth-century French also referred to such stories as nouvelles, or “news.”

202 Ibid., 269-270.

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confessional booklet he had given to the priest when in search of absolution.203 Although church authorities allegedly threatened witnesses with harsh punishments, reports of the Jesuit misadventures in Molsheim, Constance, and Vienna nevertheless came from “trustworthy people in different places.”204

Libels were characterized by the construction and presentation of “essential truths” that undergirded the fantastic or entertaining elements of their narratives. The underlying message embedded in these texts was more important than whether the stories were factual or literally true; an appreciation of the story could exist quite apart from considerations of its entertainment value, on the one hand, and its truth or falsity, on the other hand. In this instance, it was not crucial for the reader to believe that Cardinal Bellarmine was literally trundled off to hell on the back of a shrieking billy goat (he was still alive at the time this pamphlet was discovered, and would be for another seven years). Nor was it vitally important that readers believe that a demonic figure had actually eviscerated Jesuit play-actors attempting to indict the legacy of Martin Luther. Instead, these stories presented an “essential” truth, the essence of which was the contrast between the balefulness of the Jesuits and faithfulness of Lutherans. Even if readers did not believe the reports were strictly factual, the author had invited them to recognize in these stories the foundations of a deeper truth that members of the Jesuit Order were dangerously unchristian, which “experience confirms daily.”205 The pamphlet allowed readers to ponder the essential truth at the heart of these stories, repeatedly suggesting the Biblical metaphor of trees bearing fruit: “You will know them by their fruits. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that

203 Anon., Zwo Newe Zeitungen, fol. 8r.

204 Ibid., fol. 9v. “Daß aber dise Histori wahr sey / ist sie von glaubwurdigen Personen inn unterschidliche vorneme Ort geschriben worden.”

205 Ibid., 8v. “Dises ist der Jesuiter Stamb / wie werden aber die Este sein: dasselbig bezeuget die tägliche Erfarung.” 112

does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”206 In the preface addressed to the reader, the author claimed that he had presented these stories because of a moral imperative, a sense of Christian duty to unmask the Jesuits and lay bare their wickedness, “so that the Common Man can see what sort of tree bears such harmful fruit.”207 Strictly speaking, clear distinctions between truth and falsity were not so easily forthcoming in libels, which claimed for themselves trustworthiness and authenticity in lieu of objective factuality.

Pseudonymous and Anonymous Texts

In addition to its malice, the pamphlet contra Bellarmino, as imperial authorities called it, shared another characteristic identified with libels: anonymity. The name of the author was missing, and the place of publication (Basel) and printer (Ludwig König) were false.208 Anonymity and pseudonymity were associated with libel from antiquity into the early modern era.209 The Carolina was direct about the link, referring to spiteful and insulting texts not just as “libels” but “anonymous

206 Matthew 7: 15-20 (NRSV). The entire passage reads: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.” See also Luke 6: 43-44, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, not are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of their heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”

207 Anon., Zwo Newe Zeitung, fol. 8r.

208 Ludwig König was really a printer from Basel, but he insisted that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the pamphlet. Imperial authorities seemed to believe him. 27 April 1615, Letter from Valentin Leucht to Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1613, 1614, 1615, 1619-1624, fol. 18; here fol. 18r.

209 Shuger, Censorship and Cultural Sensibility, 95.

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libels.”210 In his study of eighteenth-century French libels, Darnton noted that all of the texts he analyzed were anonymous. 211 With good reason. Given the pamphlet’s content, scandalously ridiculing and denouncing the Robert Bellarmine and the Jesuits, and given the stated intention to inflict damage to the reputations of these “children of the Devil,” the author’s decision to remain anonymous was a tacit acknowledgement that he understood the nature of his enterprise. Whether he also understood its illegality and punishability was another matter. In any event, anonymity not only signaled his libelous intentions but also keep authorities at bay. It proved difficult to locate and punish the people responsible for the pamphlet.

Anonymity was a knife that cut both ways, however. While it could keep responsible parties, including authors, printers, distributors, and salesmen, from punishment, anonymity also made it difficult for accused libelers to deny their involvement convincingly. From 1625 through 1629, when he was under investigation for making and distributing other libelous materials, Georg

Zeämann was forced to defend himself from accusations that he, in fact, was the author of the anonymous pamphlet contra Bellarmine.212 The pamphlet was not the reason he was in trouble with imperial authorities in the mid-1620s, of course. Yet in correspondence about Zeämann’s New

210 “Straff schrifftlicher unrechtlicher peinlicher Schmehung,” in Constitutio Criminalis Carolia (1532), art. 110. “…durch Smachshrifft, zu Latein libel famosus genant, die er außbreitet und sich nach Ordnung der Recht mit seinem rechten Tauff= und Zunamen nit unterschreibt…”

211 Darnton, The Devil in the Holy Water, 4.

212 The attribution of Zeämann’s authorship to the anonymous pamphlet against Cardinal Bellarmine, which he may or may not have actually written, perhaps represents a permutation of the variety of literature associated with, but distinct from, forgeries discussed by Anthony Grafton as “pseudepigraphia” in Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship (London: Collins & Brown, 1990), 5-6. In general, pseudepigraphia are works done for “innocent” purposes, meaning that they adopt the names of revered figures simply to promote the continuity of a tradition or a school. Otherwise observers simply misattribute these works for one reason or another. In other words, the work is not intended to decieve. However, the author of the pamphlet against Bellarmine was anonymous with an intention to deceive, especially with regard to the place or printing and the printer. Thus, the libelous pamphlet seems closer to the kind of writings Grafton discusses as forgeries, with which libels of this type share many similarities apart from only anonymity. Forgeries more often deliberately take on the mantel of another person, usually an authority, with the intention to deceive readers.

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Mirror of Miracles, the Jesuits and the Imperial Aulic Council speculated that Zeämann had authored the libelous pamphlet against Cardinal Bellarmine.213 Although the authorship of the libelous pamphlet was not decisive in Zeämann’s libel case, establishing his authorship of it was expedient for making the larger case against him; it alluded to a predilection for authoring libels that authorities could use to convict him for his other works because it established a pattern of malicious publication. If the New Mirror of Miracles was less than flagrantly libelous – Zeämann and his supporters insisted it was not – then the pamphlet, by contrast, was manifest in its malicious and defamatory intentions. Zeämann predicated his self-defense against charges of libel regarding the

New Mirror of Miracles on a denial of malicious intent. The pamphlet against Bellarmine and the New

Mirror of Miracles shared little in common, except a markedly confessionalized rhetoric and perhaps an author, if Zeämann’s Jesuit accusers were to be believed. If imperial authorities could bind

Zeämann to the indisputably libelous pamphlet, it would contribute to an overarching narrative about Zeämann as an author who had a record of shamefully traducing Catholicism and Catholic religious figures. His claims to innocence would have been open to question and would have considerably challenged the strength of his position vis-a-vis his intentions with the New Mirror of

Miracles.

There was little Zeämann could do but deny his authorship of the pamphlet. In April 1628,

Zeämann, who had resisted accusations of being a libeler already for three years, wrote to the Jesuit priest Marcus Nöelius further proclaiming his innocence, specifically of writing the pamphlet.

“Would that I could affix a window to my heart,” he declared, “through which the innermost

213 07 April 1625, Imperial Aulic Council to Ferdinand II, HHStA, RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 27-30; here 28r, 29v.

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recesses of my soul and my innocence of these crimes could be laid open to your eyes.”214 Zeämann impressed upon Nöelius that his ordeal was the result of his enemies’ blatant disregard for Christian charity, who desired nothing less than to ruin him with lies about his motives and intentions.

Notwithstanding the toll his opponents’ persecution had taken, he claimed the soothing reassurance of a mind untroubled by guilt, which acted in his reckoning as evidence for his innocence. Writing to Nöelius, ostensibly also a member of the Republic of Letters, Zeämann articulated his state of mind using aphorisms from grand figures of antiquity and the Bible, references to which litter the margins of the letter. “Consciousness of one’s rectitude,” said Cicero, “is the greatest consolation for misfortune.”215 Quintilian had also observed, Zeämann reminded, “Nothing more blessed can be imagined than the tranquility of conscience.”216 Zeämann recited further a well-known commonplace from Horace: “Let this be thy brazen wall, to have nothing on your conscience, no guilt to turn you pale.”217 Finally, he included an indirect reference to St. Paul’s letter to the Romans,

“I speak the truth in Christ: I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.”218

Zeämann opened his letter with musings on the state of his conscience for a reason. He had a profound difficulty, one that rendered appeals to evidence other than windows into the innermost recesses of his soul uncertain. In the case of the pamphlet contra Bellarmino, Zeämann did not

214 02 April 1628, Georg Zeämann to Marcus Nöelius, HHStA, RHR BKR2, Fasc. 1628-1656, fols. 209-216; here fol. 209r. “Te appello, Marce Clarissinem et per candorum tuum, quem mihi et vultus serenitate, et gestuum venustate, et verborum suauitate declarare studuisti, rogo, obsecro, num ulla titubantis, male ve conseii animi signa in me anomaduerteris! Utinam fenestra cordi meo tum praefixa fuisset, per quam intima animi mei penetralia, et criminum innocentia oculis tuis patuisset.”

215 Ibid. “Conscientia rectae voluntatis maxima consolation estrerum incommodarum, inquit Tullius.”

216 Ibid. “Tranquillitate conscientiae nihil excogitari beatius potest, ex Quintiliani Veriveribo.”

217 Ibid. “Quod Pöeta his uerbis expressit. Hic murus aheneus esto. Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa.”

218 Ibid., fol. 209v.

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challenge the fact that the pamphlet was libelous and offensive, rather that he was responsible for writing it. This was difficult for him to prove, hence his appeals to the tranquil state of his conscience as a token of his innocence rather than to imperial censorship laws and their application.

How, precisely, the process of determining its authorship unfolded was unclear even to Zeämann, apart from the fact that it was traced through the printer, Jacob Winter of Lauingen, who named

Zeämann as its author.219 Zeämann disputed Winter’s testimony, noting that although it was false,

Winter’s confession was perhaps wrested from him by intimidation, as the people responsible for extracting the printer’s testimony were also his (Zeämann’s) accusers.220 Therefore, Zeämann was not battling fact, but rumor and gossip. Against these, he had no reliable alternative apart from the apparently sympathetic Nöelius, whom he hoped to persuade to be an advocate on his behalf. It was his word against his opponents’. Each side had stakes in arguing their cases based on what they could prove at the time. Jesuit theologians had endeavored for years to silence their Lutheran antagonists, men like Zeämann. Zeämann, for his part, understandably wanted to maintain his innocence and avoid punishment.

Although anonymity might help authors and printers avoid detection and punishment, the avoidance of identifiers on texts, it must be remembered, signalled intention: in this instance, the intention not to be discovered and punished for producing and distributing a libel. With an anonymous text, a purchaser knew what they were likely to get. The same was true with pseudonymous works. As was the case with the use of anonymity, pseudonymity could deflect attention from the true author of a text. This was less effective for avoiding detection than anonymity, and it is not clear that in every case the author of pseudonymous texts wished to avoid

219 25 February 1627, Letter from Jacob Winter to Georg Zeämann, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 1629, fols. 207-208.

220 02 April 1628, Zeämann to Nöelius, fols. 210r-214v.

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detection. For example, in 1636 and again in 1637, Jesuits implored Emperor Ferdinand III to prohibit certain anti-Jesuit books and treatises, already outlawed in Spain, as violations of the

Empire’s censorship laws about libel.221 One letter observed that these libelous books, which ought to be condemned, were published partly under fictitious names and partly under the true names of their author.222 Of the nearly twenty books proposed for the ban, some six different authors were named, including Philoxenus Melandrus, Alphonsus de Vargas, and Iuniperus de Anconas. These were pseudonyms for the prodigious and infamous (and Catholic) controversialist, Kaspar Schoppe, whose antagonistic oeuvre the Jesuits hoped to ban within the Empire, whence it was largely produced and disseminated. In addition to variations in the spelling of his actual name – both his given- and family names – there were a host of invented pseudonyms. According to the VD17, without accounting for the variations in spellings of the same name, Schoppe was known to have employed more than twenty pseudonyms.

The usefulness of false names for avoiding detection was limited. It is clear that the Jesuits knew that the author of Ad Reges et Principes Catholicos Consultatio, de causis et modies conservande et amplificanda Soc. Jesu, ascribed to Daniel Hospitalius, was the same person as the author of Ad Reges et

Principes Christianos, identified as Alphonsus de Vargas, and that, moreover, both of these people were Kaspar Schoppe. I am unsure of how or why Schoppe selected his monikers. However, as was the case with anonymous works, use of pseudonyms served a rhetorical purpose, especially in

221 27 December 1636, To Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria, HHStA, RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 14 and 22. This letter included a printed copy of the following: Copia Decreti, et Relatio Processus Iudicialis S. Fidei Inquisitionis Madritensis, Adversus Authores et Libros famosis contra Societatem Iesu editos; Una cum Indice Librorum, qui Romae 23 Augusti 1634 a Congregatione Enim-rum & RR-uan S.R.E. card. damnati & prohibiti. Beati estis cum maledixerint vobis homines & dixerint omne malum adversum vos mentientes, propter me, guadete & exultate, quoniam merces vestra copiosa est incoelis. Matt 5 (1634); 03 January 1637, Anton Welser to Emperor Ferdinand III, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 23 and 30.

222 03 January 1637, Anton Welser, fol. 23r.

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polemical exchanges, rather than only serving as a vehicle for subterfuge. During the opening years of the seventeenth century, in the spring of his service to the emperor as imperial book commissioner in Frankfurt, Valentin Leucht engaged in a polemical exchange with evangelical convert and Wittenberg theologian, Gottfried Rabe. In this exchange, Leucht, who was duty-bound to uphold imperial censorship law and ensure that books with false names were not produced or distributed, nevertheless published his treatises against Rabe under a pseudonym. In 1601, Rabe printed a “revocation sermon” in Wittenberg, in which the Augustinian monk announced his allegiance to the Augsburg Confession and ridiculed his previous fidelity to the “idolatrous and antichristian abhorrence” of the Roman papacy.223 Leucht responded in print in the same year, under the pseudonym Theodor Cygnaeus.

There is nothing to indicate that Leucht wanted to elude authorities. His choice of sobriquet was influenced by its play on the family names of himself and Gottfried Rabe, “light” and “raven” respectively. This gave Leucht an advantage in the relative rhetorical balance of their argument, since he was on the side of “light” and his opponent on the side of “darkness.” Yet, their names lacked symbolic equivalency and only implied the dichotomy between light and darkness. Leucht could not change his opponent’s name because he wanted to refute Rabe unambiguously. In order to strengthen the rhetorical value and to draw greater attention to it, Leucht opted to use a pseudonym for himself. He chose Cygnaeus, which was a close rendering of the Latin term Cygnus meaning “swan.” The title of Leucht’s counter-treatise further pointed to, and ridiculed, the bird- association: A Brief but Well-Founded Retort To the Revocation Sermon of Gottfried Rabe, the Sprung

223 Gottfried Rabe, Christliche Revocation Predigt. Des Ehrwirdigen Godefridi Raben / Gewesenen Augustiner Münchs / und Predigers zu Prage bey S. Thomas auff der kleinen Seiten: In welcher er dem Römischen Bapstumb Urlaub gegeben / desselben Abgöttereyen und Antichristischen grewln / darinn er zuvor gesteckt / freywillig und öffentlichen widerrufen / und sich zu den Evangelischen Kirchen der Augsburgischen Confession bekandt hat. Gehalten in der Pfarrkirchen zu Wittenberg / Am Sontage Misercordias Domini, Anno 1601 (Wittenberg: Zacharias Lehmann, 1601). VD17: 23:249384N.

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Augustinian Monk, In Whom the Wittenberg Theologians so Highly Celebrate as if They Had Caught a Noble

Bird and Had Gotten a Magnificent Man. In Which the Abominable and Decrepit Things of the Raven as well as the Wittenberg Theologians are Set Forth Before the Eyes.224 The use of anonymous and pseudonymous works was closely associated with libel, particularly by those abused or maligned in such works. But there was not an unbreakable connection between the two, since there were plenty of books, treatises, and pamphlets identified by authorities as libelous whose authors and origins were never in doubt. Often, anonymity and pseudonmity served their own rhetorical purposes, related to but still distinct from the advantages of not being caught or identified.

Libel as a Variety of Scholarship

It is important to remember that libel was a form of rhetoric, the aim of which was to convince a reader of an argument by mocking, ridiculing, or deriding an opponent or enemy who often held the opposite position. Libel was closely bound with academic disputations and confessional polemics. Satire, for instance, was near and dear to libel, and happened to have long been wielded by learned pugilists. As Robert Darnton has reminded us, early modern men of letters had “assimilated a great deal of quasi-libelous satire – by Lucian, Horace, Juvenal, Suetonius, and others,” and that sixteenth- and seventeenth century humanists, who collected and edited these works, learned to attack and abuse “each other with such vituperation in their academic disputations as to make libeling look like a variety of scholarship.”225 It was not coincidental that most libel

224 Theodor Cygneus [Valentin Leucht], Kurtzer doch Gründtlicher Gegenbericht / auff deß Gottfrid Raben / eines außgesprungenen Augustiner Münchs Revocation Predigt: Mit welchem die wittembergische Theologi so hoch prangen / alß ob sie einen vortrefflichen Vogel gefangen / und herrlichen Mann bekommen hetten; In welchem so wol deß Raben / als der Wittenbergischen Theologen grewel unnd bawfellige sachen für die Augen gestalt warden (Frankfurt am Main: Nikolaus Stein and Mainz: Balthasar Lipp, 1601). VD17 12:110638A.

225 Darnton, The Devil in the Holy Water, 258. 120

accusations registered with imperial authorities came on the heels of ongoing polemical exchanges, during which each side had accused the other of defamation at some point in the course of dispute.

It was common for opponents to draw attention to calumnious elements embedded within polemical attacks and to label their antagonist a libeler, frequently as its own rhetorical strategy for discrediting the original argument or accusation. Hostile parties accused and counter-accused one another of lying, scandalizing, and libeling in their books, treatises, and disputations. Titles for polemical works reflected hard feelings. Following Leucht’s brusque and insulting retort to his conversion sermon, for instance, Gottfried Rabe published a defense “against the scandalous and calumnious libel of the papist, antichristian Ass who calls himself Theodor Cygnaeus.”226 Once again as Cgynaeus, Leucht parried Rabe’s account by accusing the Wittenberg theologians and their

“fantastic raven” of pursuing “obscene gamesmanship and the work of lies.”227

One of the period’s more productive Lutheran controversialists was Theodor Thumm, whom we met earlier. Thumm’s polemical skills were sharpened against the Jesuits of Dillingen and

Ingolstadt between his appointment at the university in 1618 and his temporary imprisonment for libel in castle Hohentübingen in 1628. Unintimidated by his denunciation before the Imperial Aulic

Council in 1625, Thumm refused to abandon his polemics. His activities between 1625 and 1626 were among the most spirited of his career. The polemical battle between himself and the Jesuits

226 Gottfried Rabe, Nohtwenidge Antwort und Defensionschrifft. Der Christlichen revocation Predigt des Ehrwirdigen Godefridi Raben, Weiland Augustiner Münchs / und gewesen Predigers zu Prag etc. Wider die anzügige und lesterliche Famoßschrifft / eines Bepstischen / Antichristischen Scriptorculi, der sich Theodorum Cygnaeum nennet: Sampt einem kurtzen Bericht / was man von der Münch stand / vermeinter Religion / auch verbübten Gottlosen Leben / mitten im Bapsthumb gehalten habe (Wittenberg: Paul Helwig and Georg Müller, 1602). VD17 3:003433K.

227 Theodor Cygnaeus [Valentin Leucht], Replica Oder Beweiβliche Ableinung der Nichtwerdigen Defension Schrifft / wegen der schlimmen Lügen Revocation Predigt / mit welcher die Wittenbergische Theologi sampt ihrem fantastischen Raben abermals brangent daher […] kommen: Darinnen erstlich irer der Wittenbergischen Theologen unzüchtige Bosserey und Lügenwerck / dann auch gemeltes Raben döllpische Antwort mit gleichmessigen / doch gewiesern Historien / Exempeln und Argumenten / eins umbs ander gründtlich abgefertigt warden; Sampt eigentlicher Erklerung / was / wo / wie und wer der recht Antichrist sey (Frankfurt am Main: Nikolaus Stein and Mainz: Balthasar Lipp, 1602). VD17 12:110643U. 121

continued unabated, the official interest of the Imperial Aulic Council notwithstanding. Thumm was engaged in polemical battles primarily with Jesuit theologians Lorenz Forer, Caspar Lechner, and George Stengel. As noted earlier, Thumm’s Catholic opponents dispaired of answering

Thumm’s printed calumnies on their own and claimed imperial intervention as the only way to counter him. Specifically, Bishop Knöringen stated that Thumm’s “abuses have already been opposed in print,” but lamented that these attempts had not made an impression.228 By mentioning the fruitlessness of attempts to correct Thumm’s mistakes in print, Bishop Knöringen was likely explaining and justifying the Jesuits’ role in polemical exchanges.

Caspar Lechner, for example, had contended with Thumm in several counter-polemical disputations at Ingolstadt, refuting at various points his “errors,” “cavils,” and “slandering” regarding the so-called papal Antichrist.229 Not surprisingly, Thumm responded in kind with accusations of lies, errors, cavils, and calumnies leveled at Lechner and the Jesuits.230 The Jesuits were not alone in disputing with Thumm’s theology. Thumm took part in an inter-Evangelical

228 18 March 1625, Bishop Heinrich von Knöringen of Augsburg, 14v. “…man schon solche miβhandlungen ihnen in scriptis widersprochen oder retorquierrt werden.”

229 Kaspar Lechner, Apocalypticus Character Antichristi, Disputatus: Cum sex aliis Antichristianis notis a Theodoro Thummio calumniose & torte explicatis (Ingolstadt: Gregor Hänlin, 1624). VD17 23:238526S; Euthychi-Nestoriana Ubiquitas: Theol. Disput. Impugnata In Celebri ac Electorali Universitate Ingolstadiensi, Contra Theodorum Thummium, Novum Eutychi-Nestorianum, Academiae Tubingensis Theologum (Ingolstadt: Gregor Hänlin, 1624). VD17 23:237927S; Antichristus Thummianus Theol. Disput. Refutatus. Sive Doctrina Bellarminiana De Papa Non-Antichristo Contra Theodori Thummii Lutherani cavillos & errores (Ingolstadt: Gregor Hänlin, 1624). VD17 23:238580L; Thummianae Iconomachiae Theol. Disput. Refutatae Pars Prior (Ingolstadt: Gregor Hänlin, 1624). VD17 23:238707X.

230 Theodor Thumm, Idololatria Lechneriana, Hoc Est, Responsio Ad Partem Priorem Thummianae Iconomachiae, per Casparum Lechnerum, Jesuitam Monachum Ingolstadiensem ad speciem refutatae: In Qua Romana Ecclesia Horrendae Idolomaniae denuo convincitur (Dietrich Werlin: Tübingen, 1624). VD17 3:021276V; Sanae De Maiestate Christi Theanthrōpu Doctrinae Repetitio: Ubi Membro Primo: Orthodoxa Veritas Contra Jesuitarum Calumnias, Et Quorundam Aliorum suggillationes ita asseritur, ut Christus ... Totus, & quoad ... Indivisus maneat: Membro Secundo: Imposturae Et Fraudes Casparis Lechneri Jesuitae Monachi Ingolstadiensis Refelluntur; Acceßit Praefatio, In Qua Pagellae, sine titulo & Autore hinc inde nuper de eodem hoc argumento sparsae, pie examinantur (Dietrich Werlin: Tübingen, 1624). VD17 39:131789G; Apocalypticus Character Antichristi: Cavillis & mendaciis Per Casparum Lechnerum, Jesuitam Monachum Ingolstadiensem, in Apocalyptico suo Antichristi Charactere sparsis, oppositus (Dietrich Werlin: Tübingen, 1624). VD17 23:333168S; Papa Antichristus Magnus, Hoc Est, Solida & Perspicua Demonstratio, Pontificem Romanum, Post Tempora Gregorii Magni...Erroribus Bellarmini, Maxime Vero Cavillis Casparis Lechneri Monachi Jesuitae, Et In Academia Ingolstadiensi Professoris, opposita, ac ad disputandum publice proposita (Dietrich Werlin: Tübingen, 1624). VD17 75:683637Q.

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controversy over the human nature of Christ also, which occasioned a polemic from the Lutheran theologian Balthasar Mentzer at Gieβen directed at Thumm and his fellow theologians at

Tübingen.231 Allegations of intellectual laziness and malpractice were common features of academic discourse at the time, as evidenced by the university-oriented nature of these disputes. Lechner had the support of his colleagues at Ingolstadt, staged his disputations against Thumm there, and had his polemics published by the university printer. Thumm did the same from his position at Tübingen, where he too enjoyed the support of his peers against his opponents, whether Lechner in Ingolstadt or Mentzer in Gieβen. Intellectual life in a university was contentious and called upon its participants to employ a variety of rhetorical strategies to score points and secure victories, which frequently obliged academics to engage in an argumentum ad hominem.

Sharply worded controversies and ad hominem polemics did not always stay comfortably confined to the rarefied air of universities, however. Rather, aggrieved parties who felt that an opponent went criminally too far by disrupting the public peace could make disputational polemics into official govenment business. This was how Thumm found himself in trouble with the Imperial

Aulic Council. The Jesuits accused Thumm of the crimes of libel and lèse majesté. This escalated the conflict between Thumm and the Jesuits tremendously. By deliberately inflaming religious controversy by levelling falsehoods against the papacy, they argued, Thumm had indirectly denigrated the honor of the Empire’s Catholic rulers, a charge that Thumm rejected without reservation. After all, accusing Thumm of ineptitude (i.e. or errors, lies, and cavils) for polemical purposes was quite different from denouncing him to imperial authorities for the commission of crimes (i.e. libel and sedition) for which there might be grave consequences. With the stakes thus

231 Balthasar Mentzer, Necessaria Et Iusta Defensio Contra Iniustas Criminationes D. Lucae Osiandri, D. Melchioris Nicolai, & D. Theodori Thummii: In Qua Multi De Persona Et Officio Christi Errores Deteguntur Et Refutantur (Nicolaus Hampel: Gieβen, 1624). VD17 3:306817T. 123

raised, Thumm responded with an Apologia to the emperor in 1626. In the Apologia, Thumm defended himself, in part, by counter-accusing his own accusers of defamation. The full title read:

Apologia of Theodor Thumm, Doctor of Sacred Scripture, against the Unjust Accusations of Two Jesuits, Lorenz

Forer and Caspar Lechner, of the Crimes of Lèse Majesté, and Other Serious Injuries Published by Them. By using the word “injuries” to defend himself, Thumm invoked Roman law and its definition of defamation as a form of non-bodily injury; arguably, too, his phrase “unjust accusations” paralleled one of the Carolina’s descriptions of libel as “unjust defilement” (unrechtlicher Laster). Knöringen and

Forer’s letters, and the records of the Imperial Aulic Court in 1625 also, charged Thumm of defaming not only the pope but also the emperor, although the latter accusation stood on implication, as none of the evidence presented stated that Thumm had named the emperor expressly. Forer and Knöringen, as well as the Imperial Aulic Council, engaged in some mental and legal gymnastics in order to arrive at their conclusions about Thumm’s threat to the political order and imperial peace. Thumm exploited this as a loophole in his Apologia, taking the opportunity to turn the tables on his accusers and blame them, through their very accusations, for the same crime they alleged Thumm himself had committed (i.e. libel). In order to pin the crime of libel on

Thumm, his opponents and imperial officials were going to need something more concrete.

Unfortunately for Thumm, he was unwilling to follow the advice of Duke Johann Friedrich of

Württemberg. Urged by his prince to exercise greater restraint in his public life, his apparent decision to move ahead with a republication of the Well-Founded Christian Report in 1625 returned to haunt him when his case resumed in 1627.

Something similar happened to Zeämann. When his case regained traction in early 1627,

Zeämann had published a charged response to his Jesuit adversaries. The full title of the treatise,

Zeämann’s own Apologia, ran: Doctor Georg Zeämann’s Thorough Defense, or Responsibility for His Printed

Mirror of Miracles in 1625, or a Complete Dismissal of the Baseless, Calumnious, and Depraved Gossip that the 124

Jesuit Elias Graf…Circulated Openly in Print against the Ten Miracle Sermons, along with a Rejection of the Lies and Profanities Publicly Poured Forth by the Aforementioned Graf and Laurenz Forer Concerning an Execrable

Libelous- and Defamatory Pamphlet Published Several Years Ago Against Robert Bellarmine.232 He knew that his opponents had accused him of defaming and traducing Catholicism and Catholic figures. Of this and other activities of the Jesuits, as the title suggested, he alleged a conspiracy that peddled misinformation and false accusations designed to malign him and ruin his credibility. If the goal of linking Zeämann with the admittedly libelous anti-Jesuit pamphlet was to challenge his integrity, then Zeämann’s response was to assert the base and defamatory motives of his accusers. He had recourse to this defense in his letter to Nöelius, arguing that want of Christian charity among the

Jesuits had led them to pressure the printer Jacob Winter into a false confession. Zeämann did it again in his Apologia, making it clear in the title that he thought his opponents were guilty of the same ignoble behaviors of which they had accused him.

This returns us to a point made earlier about the relationship between true, falsity, and malice. In the confessionalized universe of early modern Europe, and more specifically in the agonistic world of universities, the “truth” could be wielded with malice. One need not necessarily peddle lies and false accusations in one’s writings to stand accused of libel. Throughout his trial,

Zeämann dismissed accusations that he had libeled Catholicism, the emperor, or the House of

Austria. It was evident that Zeämann assumed that establishing a defamatory intention was crucial,

232 Georg Zeämann, Georgen Zeaemanns der H. Schrifft Doctorn grundliche Apologia, Oder Verantwortung seines Anno 1625. Getruckten Wunderspiegels. Oder Völlig Abfertigung deß grundlosen / Lästerlichen / Liederlichen Geschwätzs / welches beede Jesuiter / Elias Graf in seinem genannten Kemptischen Wunderthier / Teütsch: Unnd der Author deß Unbidermännischen Agonistici, Lateinisch: wider ihn D. Zeaemann / von gemeltem Grafen und Lorentzen Forer / offentlich auß gegoßenen Lugen und Lästerung / Eine vor etlich Jaren wider Robertum Bellarminum, Publicirte abschewliche Famos: und Schmachkarten betreffent: Und dann zu End beygefügter bescheidenlichen Ehrnrettung / wider eine andere / von einem Vornemmen Herrn Rechtsgelehrten außgesprengte ungütliche Zulag (Kempten: Christoph Krause, 1627). VD 23:331570A. I have not been able to determine the author of the referenced “Unbidermännischen Agonistici.”

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and that abusive or insulting statements against religious beliefs or persons had to be made with the intention to mislead unsuspecting readers. On that basis, Zeämann denied that his writings expressed a defamatory intent because he was presenting only the “facts.” He argued during his interrogation that his sources for allegedly defamatory statements against Catholic figures had come from sources whose Catholic credentials were impeccable. When he wrote negative things about St.

Francis of Assisi, for example, his source was a biography of St. Francis written by St.

Bonaventure.233 Most of the treatises at issue with imperial authorities were technically disputations and therefore adhered to standards of scholarship that included the use of authorities. Therefore, the statements attributed to him as defamatory were not his per se. He had not invented falsehoods with the intention to mislead or deceive his readers, nor to besmirch notable Catholics. Engaging in disputations was not, he implied throughout his interrogation, illegal. For most of his trial, in fact,

Zeämann seemed honestly at pains to understand how his academic and pastoral activities had gotten him into trouble with imperial authorities, straining to make out the contours of the legal arguments Jesuits and imperial officials were making. It seemed clear to him that, while the pamphlet contra Bellarmino was, as his own Apologia put it, “an execrable, libelous, and defamatory pamphlet,” his own Mirror of Miracles was a product of his pastoral duties and thus represented an entirely separate order of discourse. Yet, in the final assessment, Zeämann underestimated the extent to which libel was not simply falsity or contrivance; scholarship, too, could be defamatory and illegal if it insulted the wrong people, at the wrong time, and in the wrong place, as the previous chapter argued.

233 28 June 1629, Examen und Constitutem deß auff dem Schloss und Bestung Ernberg arrestierten D. Georgen Zeamanns Praedicantens zue Kempten, HHStA, RHR BKR1, fasc. 1629, fols. 124-206; here 134v, Questions 2-3.

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It is crucial to recognize that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, libel was not a mature literary genre with subtle but distinct qualities that distinguished it from other modes of literary and rhetorical expression. In the Confessional Age, imperial authorities classified an array of written materials as libelous, demonstrating how remarkably flexible the category was in theory and in practice. Some of the texts pursued by imperial officials were histories, others were academic disputations, and still others were sermon collections. Histories figured prominently in the kinds of writings brought to the attention of imperial authorities as polemical, offensive, or otherwise illegal according to the Empire’s censorship laws. History was – and remains – a useful instrument in the hands of polemicists and was arguably as potent a weapon in the confessional battles of the seventeenth century as theology was, if not more so. This contributed to the suppression of writings as libelous that attacked religious figures as well as religious beliefs and practices that had been hallowed by history and tradition.

Struggles over the censorship of historical discourse in the seventeenth century took place against the backdrop of how history, its methods, its meaning, and its usefulness had been shaped by, first, humanism and, second, by the Protestant and Catholic Reformations. In the first place, within the context of civic humanism, history was simultaneously construed as a presentation and explanation, in anticipation of Ranke’s famous dictum, of what “really happened” as well as a

“persuasive vehicle of ideology or celebrator of a cause” that “would move, and possibly shake, the world.”234 The ancients studied by humanists believed that the careful study of history could liberate humanity from the shackles of barbarity and backwardness, a view reflected in the oft-repeated

234 Donald R. Kelley, “Johann Sleidan and the Origins of History as a Profession,” in The Journal of Modern History 52 (1980): 573-598; here 574-575.

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adage “without history men would forever remain children,” and shared by humanists themselves as well as humanist reformers such as Philipp Melanchthon.235

More important for the religious conflagrations of the confessional age was the legacy of the

Reformation, which had married humanism’s confidence about historical reflection and its capacity to stimulate progress and growth to a theological commitment to free pious Christians from the novelties and inventions that had retarded the medieval church and continued to corrupt the papacy.

Luther’s principle of sola scriptura developed as a response to what was as much an historical problem as it was a theological problem, namely that in the Roman church corrupt “human traditions” had, throughout the medieval period, come to occupy a place of equal or greater authority in Christian belief and practice than Scripture itself. Luther’s task, therefore, had been to separate the wheat from the tares, to distinguish an authentic Christianity based on the authority of Scripture and the

Apostolic Church from an inauthentic Christianity based on the authority of the papal monarchy and its acolytes. Much of what divided Catholics from Lutherans consisted in their respective attitudes towards tradition, which was to say, their attitude toward historically rooted forms of

Christian religiosity. History as a form of discourse, therefore, tended to be ideologically charged, if not in its presentation of historical facts per se, then insofar as the interpretation of those facts served as grist for the polemical mill. The broad understanding of libel offered in Constitutio Criminalis

Carolina, which was the only working definition of libel provided by the law as such, allowed for the suppression of inconvenient facts, both historical and contemporary, simply because they offended honor, reputation, or privilege. While the Carolina recognized that falsehood was an important precondition of libelous literature, it was not a necessary precondition. Histories could, in an official

235 Ibid., 581. 128

estimation of the illegality of a text, offend and abuse even when they technically contained “facts” and presumed to tell the truth about these facts.

It should come as little surprise that writers and publishers of the period tended to “stress the need for veracity and accuracy” while, at the same time, offering texts “inflected by confessional bias and subject to misrepresentation.”236 Such histories distracted from their prejudices with promises of the “unbiased nature of the account at hand,” much like the promises found in libels of the sort written against Cardinal Bellarmine, which cited trustworthy first-hand accounts of the events chronicled therein in order to stress its general credibility.237 In confessionalized discourse about, say, the corruption of Catholicism, scholarly credibility could come from references to

Catholics themselves. As Zeämann pointed out with regard to his abusive treatment of St. Francis, he gathered his information from St. Bonaventure, who was an esteemed religious figure in his own right. In support of his conclusions about the long, dark history of the papacy, Theodor Thumm had relied on the arguments of the pre-Reformation historian Johannes Nauclerus, who had apparently suggested that popes from Sylvester II to Gregory VII had practiced black magic.238 If

Protestants could use history (whether ancient, medieval, or contemporary) to indict Catholicism in the present, then Catholic historians could find themselves in trouble with authorities, who could make projections of how readers might understand and use their histories unfavorably.

In December 1624, the imperial book commissioner in Frankfurt, Johann Ludwig von

Hagen, wrote to the Imperial Aulic Council about the need to reissue an order proscribing a particular historical work. The work in question, although unnamed in Hagen’s letter, was Jacques-

236 MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 30.

237 Ibid.

238 18 March 1625, Forer to Lamormaini, HHStA, RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fol. 17r.

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Auguste de Thou’s multivolume Historiae sui temporis, produced in Frankfurt by Peter Kopf numerous times (in both Latin and German) between 1609 and 1623. According to Hagen, de

Thou’s history offered “most grave insults to the papacy” and “most impudently vomits over the memory of Emperor Charles V’s life and the Most Illustrious and Serene House of Austria.”239 In response to Hagen’s letter, imperial authorities issued a sternly worded missive to the Frankfurt city council. It stated that, as Hagen had noted, the original Paris edition had already been forbidden, which was likely a reference to the fact that the papacy had added de Thou’s Historiae to the Index of

Forbidden Books in 1609 (although there was no explicit mention of the Index in either Hagen’s letter to Vienna, or in Vienna’s letter to Frankfurt).240 Imperial officials henceforth forbade

Frankfurt from producing Latin and German editions of the Historiae, which imperial officials unambiguously labeled “defamatory,” demanding further that local authorities must confiscate all exemplars from Peter Kopf in the name of the Emperor.241

It was a somewhat curious situation at first glance. Jacques-Auguste de Thou was a Catholic who had somehow landed on the Index of Forbidden Books and on the wrong side of Catholic onlookers in the Holy Roman Empire. Even though de Thou had committed himself to producing an accurate history of Europe in his own time, for which he engaged in critical historical research using primary sources. De Thou’s commitment to honest and accurate historical scholarship did not oblige an objective detachment from his subject, however. As Anthony Grafton has explained, de

239 25 November 1625, Johann Ludwig von Hagen to the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR1, Fasc. 1612, 1614, 1615, 1619-1624, fol. 95; here 95r. “Iste Thuanus gravissimas iniurias in Pontifices & … viae Carolum V Caesarem testamque domum Illustrissimam & Serenissima[m] Austriacan impudentissime euomit.”

240 28 January 1625, Ferdinand II to the Frankfurt City Council, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, folios 12-13; here 12r.

241 Ibid., 12v-13r.

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Thou maintained confidence in his material not “only because it matched his prejudices but because he had obtained it in a particular way.”242 De Thou’s commitment to honest historical presentation was inflected with concern for France in the present, for de Thou “had watched the French polity fall apart in the Wars of Religion,” and came to believe that “An honest, impartial narrative [of the period] would serve as a foundation for social and political peace.”243 Noble as this aspiration might have been, it was also arguably the source of his difficulties with Rome. De Thou believed that

Catholics were just as blameworthy for the Wars of Religion as were the Protestants, and a history that fairly balanced blame between the two parties would necessarily require him to “demonstrate the guilt of powerful Catholic malefactors like the Guise and the innocence and nobility of scholarly

Protestants like his close friend Joseph Scaliger.”244 The view from Rome was not favorable to his endeavors, which had obliged him to indict popes for malfeasance and praise “moral Protestants.”245

Certainly, such an approach to history offered by a committed and well-known Catholic would lend credibility to, and thus encourage, Protestant attacks on Catholicism. So it did.

The danger in de Thou’s approach was in full evidence during the production of the Historiae in Frankfurt during the early seventeenth century. As Ian MacLean has observed, “This frank account of recent history written in elegant Latin by a distinguished Gallican magistrate with impeccable Catholic credentials was enthusiastically welcomed by opponents of the Papacy for its anti-Tridentine sentiments, and soon linked to the anti-papal literature inspired by the Venice

242 Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: A Curious History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 136.

243 Ibid., 133.

244 Ibid.

245 Ibid., 134.

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interdict in the period 1606-1607.”246 De Thou’s Historiae garnered the attention of entrepreneurial

Protestant bookmen in Frankfurt, including its eventual publisher Peter Kopf, who conspired to release a German edition of the work, perhaps because it was added to the Index of Forbidden

Books in 1609 increasing its credibility among educated Protestant book-buyers. In the meantime,

Melchior Goldast, Kopf’s underling, complicated matters. He wanted to undercut the Paris edition of the work advertised at the Frankfurt book fair. Finding a sympathetic printer outside of

Frankfurt, in Offenbach, which was relatively free of censorial oversight, Goldast not only produced a cheap reprint of the Historiae, but also “added explanatory marginalia which made the anti-papal content of the Historiae very explicit.”247 Additionally, Goldast added anti-Tridentine passages which de Thou himself had cut at the behest of the French court, while also deleting less-than-flattering remarks about the late Reformed Palatine Elector Johann Casimir.248 The edition effectively destroyed the financial viability of the Paris edition at Frankfurt, and De Thou was understandably enraged, even after Kopf himself later backtracked and stressed de Thou’s Catholic orthodoxy in a

1614 edition.249

Libel and the Limits of Confessionalization

It should be clear by now that, in the period between the Religious Peace of Augsburg and the end of the Thirty Years’ War, religious differences instigated exchanges of polemical barbs and allegations of libel. Of the libel allegations that have survived in the records for the Imperial Aulic

246 MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 33.

247 Ibid, 34.

248 Ibid.

249 Ibid., 36-37. 132

Council, all orbit around religious invective. The majority of cases involved the denigration of

Catholicism through the libeling of notable Catholics. Despite the marked anti-Catholic tendencies of accused libelers in imperial records, there are indications that the prosecution of libelous scholarship was less rigidly confessionalized than might be expected. Although the overwhelming majority of known libels heap scorn on Catholics and Catholicism, there are important nuances that must be shaded to complete the picture. Numerous cases involved intra-confessional accusations of libel; it was common for Catholics to accost other Catholics with defamation allegations, as de

Thou’s plight suggested. In de Thou’s case, officials objected because it seemed the French historian was doing the Protestants’ heavy lifting for them by being hard on Catholics and soft on

Protestants, which allowed Protestant interlocutors to reissue his work with only a few emendations.

On a few occasions, however, people objected to members of their own confession on the demerits of their own arguments, rather than the ways others might use those arguments. There was, to take another example, the fascinating case of Georg Eder, chancellor of the University of

Vienna and members of the Imperial Aulic Council, whom Emperor Maximilian II censured in 1573 for publishing a controversial defense of Catholic orthodoxy against Lutheran “heretics” and for defaming, in the process, member of the imperial Habsburg court.250 There was also suppression of the works of Marcus Antonius de Dominis, the Catholic Archbishop of Dalmatia, whose rejection of papal primacy resulted in the work De Republica Ecclesiastica contra Primatum Papae, which Emperors

Matthias and Ferdinand II worked to suppress in the Empire between 1616 and 1620.251

250 Fulton, Catholic Belief and Survival, 83-98.

251 03 December 1616, Unsigned Letter, HHStA RHR BKR1, misc., fol 60r; 03 December 1616, Emperor Matthias to the Imperial Book Commission, HHStA RHR BKR1, misc., fol. 59; 16 January 1617, Valentin Leucht, et. al. to the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR1, misc., fol. 48; 22 January 1617, Emperor Matthias to the Imperial Book Commission, HHStA RHR BKR1, misc., fols 47 and 50; 22 February 1617, Emperor Matthias to the Imperial Book Commission, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1613, 1614, 1615, 1619-1624, fol. 35; 20 March 1617, Valentin Leucht et. al. to 133

Catholicism was not a monolith, and confessional allegiances fell along a spectrum too broad and variegated to be captured in a simple dualism pitting Catholicism against Protestantism. That the majority of cases for libel alleged the denigration of the Catholic Religion should not obscure the fact that in a statistically significant number of cases – about half of those on file in the imperial archives – the accused libelers were Catholics.252

There was one instance of a Lutheran accusing another of defaming the emperor for his questionable Catholic religiosity. Michael Beuther wrote to Emperor Maximilian II in the autumn on 1574 to report his discovery of “false,” “reprehensible,” “and irreconcilable” additions to a recent edition of a German-language contribution to Johannes Sleidan’s ongoing history of the contemporary Empire.253 Beuther, a Wittenberg-educated historian working at the Strasburg

Academy, was the author of the adulterated text in question. His principle objection concerned an addition to the text for the year 1573, which claimed a Jesuit plot in Vienna to extirpate Lutherans there. “At the beginning of this year,” the unapproved addition observed, “there was evidently a secret plot made by several Jesuit monks gathered in Vienna against Evangelicals, who gathered with the permission of His Imperial Majesty in the palace of Lord von Rogendorf as if in a church to hear sermons and participate in other services.”254 The Lutherans, caught unawares, were set upon and

Emperor Matthias, HHStA RHR BKR1, misc., fol. 69; 28 July 1617, Imperial Book Commission to Emperor Matthias, HHStA RHR BKR1, misc., fols. 71-72; 07 March 1620, Johann Ludwig von Hagen to the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1613, 1614, 1615, 1619-1624, fols. 33-34.

252 If one is uncomfortable referring to de Dominis, a notorious apostate who sought refuge and favor in England, as a Catholic in the strict sense, then one can at least say that about half of the accused libelers referenced in the archival records were “not Protestant.” Also recall that Kaspar Schoppe, whom the Jesuits wanted suppressed in the late 1630s, was also a coverted Catholic and, in fact, had been a virulent anti-Protestant polemicist and an advisor to Archduke Ferdinand of Styria before Ferdinand acceded to the imperial title as Ferdinand II.

253 16 November 1574, Michael Beuther to Emperor Maximilian II, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. I, convolute 6, fols. 2-6; here fol. 3r.

254 Ibid., fol. 4r. 134

killed, according to the story. Although he should have felt threatened by such an attack, which may or may not have occurred in collusion with the French, the Emperor had yet done nothing against such “confederacies.”255

By Beuther’s own testimony, he recognized his responsibilities as an author under imperial censorship law. Naming the imperial constitution and the police ordinance of 1577, he asserted the criminal impropriety of dishonoring persons of all estates in the Empire, both high and low, and especially of disgracing the emperor with “blundering, unbecoming, and frivolous writings.”256 As the law dictated, he took his complaints first to the council of Strasbourg, which was responsible for the oversight of the book trade in the city. They were not receptive to his objections and, because he possessed an imperial privilege for this book, he took his case to the emperor directly.257 Beuther had a great deal at stake in this matter. He insisted that the additions were made “without any basis in the truth” and were fabricated with the malicious intention of making the Jesuits, Catholicism, and the emperor appear badly, which he recognized as defamation. Beuther repeated also that the changes had been “made under my name but without my knowledge or permission.”258 To make matters worse, the tainted editions had been sold at the Frankfurt book fair.

Beuther was deeply concerned that an accusation of disseminating libelous materials about the emperor would be wrongful and therefore undeservedly damaging to his own reputation. Thus, the unapproved additions were also, in a manner, defamatory against him as well as against the

255 Ibid.

256 Ibid., fol. 3v.

257 Ibid.

258 Ibid.

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emperor. He knew that what had been printed and sold was a clear violation of the law. He stressed repeatedly that it had been done without his knowledge or permission. In that sense,

Beuther, the scholar, was indignant to have falsehoods paraded around the book markets of the

Empire under his name. It was its own form of defamation: Beuther was not the peddler of malicious rumors, but was their victim too, in fact, as his honor and reputation would be badly damaged by the association. Therefore, Beuther endeavored to set the record straight, even if that meant singling out his co-religionist, the printer Theodosius Rihel, as culprit. The bonds of confessional allegiance were unreliable when faced with other exigencies.

***

Libel had no necessary relationship with any particular genre and was not quite a genre of its own. As a literary production, libels straddled the liminal space between many genera. This was possible because the qualities that distinguished libel as a legal category were largely indifferent to strict considerations of truth and falsehood, or style and method. Libels therefore cut across literary genera and sometimes included scholarly and academic productions that relied on scholarly methods and featured facts in their arguments. While this can seem muddled to modern eyes, it should be remembered that even those texts that are familiarly libelous – like the tale of Robert Bellarmine and the Jesuits – distinguished between strict factuality and “essential truth,” which demonstrated what poor barometers truth and falsity could be for determining libel. What mattered most to imperial observers, as evidenced by the cases considered above, was malicious intent: The libeler was the writer who had aimed to degrade the honor, reputation, and dignity of his target and had hit his mark. This was done as effectively with truths and facts as it was with fictions and lies. It was enough that someone took offense or felt wounded by an author’s remarks or allegations. Trials against suspected libelers were fundamentally subjective affairs, depending as much on hurt feelings and potential consequences as any demonstrable outcome related the victim’s impugned honor. 136

Chapter Four The Punishment of Libel

Imperial punishments for libel were vaguely worded, reflecting the core ambiguities of imperial censorship law. The most relevant imperial recesses mandated some form of punishment for transgressors. After laying out the illegality of defamatory works and demanding pre-publication censorship, Speyer’s recess in 1529 declared that authors, printers, or vendors “who transgress such an order should be punished according to the instance by the authority under whom they reside or into whose territory they enter.”259 The following year the Augsburg recess repeated its predecessors’ instructions and added a caveat: “Where the author, printer, or vendor transgresses such an order and command [against libelous books and the like], he should be punished according to the instance in body or in goods by the authority under whom he resides or into whose territory he has entered.”260 This bifurcation facilitated the branching-out of penalties in subsequent imperial legislation, which included arrest, the confiscation of property, fines, and the suspension of trade.

All of these penalties were applied in imperial libel cases during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, although not simultaneously. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, irritated by the alleged disregard in which the Empire’s bookmen held imperial proscriptions, imperial recesses urged local authorities to enforce penalties in both kinds, against body and goods. This chapter explores imperial punishment of accused libelers, first against their persons in the form of arrest and imprisonment and, second, against their material possessions through fines, confiscation, and suspension of their trade.

259 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1529), §9. “…auch der Dichter, Drucker und Verkauffer solch Gebot uberfahren, durch die Obrigkeut, darunter er gesessen oder betretten, nach Gelegenheit an Leib oder Gut gestrafft werden.”

260 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1530), §58. “Und wo der Tichter, Trucker und Verkauffer solch ordnung und Gebott überfahren, soll er durch due Obrigkeit, darunter er gesessen oder betretten, nach Gelegenheit an Leib oder Gut gestrafft werden.” Emphasis added. 137

Punishing the Body: Arrest and Imprisonment

Punishment of the body is an important consideration for assessing and historicizing the success or failure of censorship measures. The Holy Roman Empire neither demanded nor endeavored to secure violent castigation of the body. There were no executions, beatings, or disfigurements. Arrest and incarceration represented the most extreme forms of bodily punishment demanded by the imperial government for these sorts of infractions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the records for libel prosecution for that period, there were only two instances of the imperial government pursuing the arrest and imprisonment of accused libelers (authors): Theodor

Thumm and Georg Zeämann. These two cases are the centerpieces of this chapter because the courses and outcomes reveal how difficult enforcing censorship laws could be. Both cases had mixed outcomes. Thumm’s lord and patron, Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg, arrested him as punishment for his libelous activities after a long process of negotiation with imperial authorities.

For both parties – the emperor and the duke (and presumably Thumm also) – the outcome was less than they had wanted: Imperial authorities had demanded Thumm’s arrest and transfer into imperial custody, while Duke Johann Friedrich wanted Thumm to remain free. Zeämann’s case ended with similarly mixed results. Emperor Ferdinand II and his brother, Archduke Leopold V, secured

Zeämann’s custody, but not as punishment: It was the prelude to his interrogation and questioning.

Having held him for more than a year with no resolution, evangelical estates throughout the Empire rallied to his cause and forced the emperor to release him – perhaps against his wishes, but not against his better judgment. Imperial officials decided that Zeämann’s “time served” would suffice as his penalty for libel. In the end, these two cases reveal the tight jurisdictional knot that gripped the Empire. Regular authorities and imperial authorities could ill afford to alienate one another, leaving both sides winners and losers in the struggle to punish the bodies of the Empire’s subjects and citizens. 138

Before addressing how punishments were construed against members of the imperial book trade, it is necessary to note that imperial censorship regulations provided the laws’ administrators and enforcers disincentives for non-compliance. While imperial recesses offered a variety of penalties, the wording suggested that imperial calls for punishment straddled the space between commandment and recommendation. According to imperial censorship laws, the determination and application of penal measures was left to the discretion of local authorities and their representatives.

Imperial legislation was content that an appropriate penalty should be handed down to transgressors of the law. Specific penalties varied from one recess to another, and none of the relevant recesses demanded all forms of prescribed punishments (i.e. none demanded fines, confiscation, suspension of the trade, and arrest at once). Instead, it was a consistent feature of sixteenth-century regulations to leave the choice of selecting punishments to the local authorities. Legislation stated that punishment should reflect the nature of the transgression and the opportunities for local authorities carry out a particular punishment; i.e. penalties were determined “according to the circumstances”

(nach Gelegenheit) by relevant authorities.261 This formulation implied that authorities possessed the latitude to determine punishments in accordance with the severity and gravity of the transgression, and provided them with the discretion to act as the circumstances warranted.

The latitude afforded to local authorities was not bestowed upon them in recognition of their sound judgment and tireless dedication to imperial censorship law. The recesses secured their cooperation by appealing to their sense of duty. For the first half of the century, censorship legislation referred to the estates as “patrons and protectors of the [Catholic] faith,” and thereafter as

261 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1529), §9; Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1530), §58; Recess for the Imperial Diet at Regensburg (1541), §40; Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1548), §2; Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §157; Kaiserliche und des Reichs reformirte und gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), §3.

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stewards of the Empire’s peace and unity.262 The Edict of Worms’ unquestionable failure in much of the Empire demonstrated that cooperation from electors, princes, and civic magistrates was far from assured. It was necessary not only to persuade the estates by reminding them of their responsibilities, but also to threaten punishment if they disregarded their obligations.

The imperial recesses did not address members of the book trade – authors, printers, publishers, or booksellers. Rather, they targeted the imperial estates as administrators and enforcers of imperial laws, plying them with standards and expectations, ambiguous as they were. When demands for punishment sounded against the book trade in the imperial recesses, corresponding cautions echoed in the courts and councils of the Empire’s electoral, princely, and civic leaders.

Legislation permitted the estates, as the Empire’s de facto regulatory and enforcement agencies, to determine the punishment they meted out, but did not grant them full autonomy. They were repeatedly warned that they should remain watchful of imperial law when overseeing the local book industry and penalizing violations of the law, lest they find punishment for themselves as well. “And where any authority has been discovered to be careless,” the 1530 Augsburg recess observed, “the imperial procurator of our Imperial Chamber Court should proceed against that authority according to the circumstances of each and its negligence…”263 Pressure was amplified in the latter half of the century, when the recesses grew frustrated with how poorly the estates met the laws’ demands.

Despite the admonishment of previous imperial diets, as Speyer’s recesses noted in 1570, “in many places our command is not heeded, but is overlooked such that all manner of shameless defamatory

262 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg (1524), §9; Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1548), §2; Kaiserliche und des Reichs reformirte und gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), §§2 and 3.

263 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1530), §58. “Und wo einige Obrigkeit, sie wäre wer sie wollen, hierinn lässig befunden würde, alsdann mag und soll Unser Keyserlicher Fiscal, gegen derselben Obrigkeit um die Straff procedieren und fortfahren, welche Straff nach Gelegenheit jeder Oberkeit, und derselben Fahrlässigkeit, Unser Kayserlich Kammergericht zu setzen und zu taxieren Macht haben soll.”

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writings, books, pamphlets, and images are printed with impunity.”264 The problem was not simply that authors, printers, and sellers ignored the Empire’s censorship laws, rather that local authorities had not sufficiently dissuaded bookmen from their contumacy. Whether strictly true or not – the recesses declined to qualify their claims – imperial authorities argued that the profusion of libelous materials was a disappointing and avoidable outcome of negligence on the part of the Empire’s local authorities.

It was improbable that authorities were disregarding censorship laws entirely, permitting their bookmen to operate with impunity, as Speyer had charged. Libel was a subjective, contingent, and contested category, as discussed at length in the three previous chapters. Satisfactory resolutions to libel cases were not readily forthcoming because imperial standards and expectations tended toward obscurity. The cases of Thumm and Zeämann suggested that opinions about whether a particular book or treatise constituted libel or not were the heart of conflicts, rather than the criminality of libel per se. In other words, books that imperial authorities might consider libelous were not always the same books that local authorities within the Empire might also deem libelous.

It is safe to conclude that many authorities in the Empire had not blithely disregarded imperial commands. Rather, imperial laws’ lack of perspicuity had rendered their own prescriptions nearly impracticable.

Couched in imperial admonitions was the idea that leniency was the main problem, and that leniency was equivalent to wanton carelessness or blatant disregard. In 1524, for example, the diet at

Nuremberg pleaded that “each and every authority should have little leniency with their printers” as

264 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §154. “So kommen Wir doch in gewisse Erfahrung, dass solchem Unsrem und des Heil. Reichs gebot an vielen Oertern nicht gelebt, sondern zugesehen werden will, dass hin und wieder allerley schamlose Schmehschrifften, Bücher, Karten und Gemählde gedruckt und gemahlet, ohne alles straffen…” Emphasis added.

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a means for ensuring “that defamatory writings and images are henceforth totally eliminated and no longer propagated.”265 Authorities, it seemed, were insufficiently strict. The recesses encouraged them to be less tolerant of bookmen. The recess insisted that local authorities deliver penalties with

“due seriousness and severity, lest they [local authorities] should fall into our disfavor” and in turn be punished.266 The degree of severity required, however, was no less ambiguous.

Imperial records reveal no instances of libelers – or any others who violated imperial censorship laws – suffering capital punishment or suffering the grotesque horrors of disfigurement.

Of the myriad ways authorities could afflict the body, the Empire was content with its detainment; i.e. arrest represented the extent of bodily punishments mandated by the imperial government.

Inexplicit threats of punishment predominated in censorship legislation until the imperial diet at

Augsburg in 1548. Having pronounced the necessity of suppressing libelous books, pamphlets, and images, the recess remarked that all persons found responsible for the production and distribution of illicit printed materials, as well as any who possessed them, “should be arrested amicably or, where necessity requires it, by force.”267 The police ordinance promulgated from the diet in

Frankfurt in 1577 reiterated this demand verbatim.268 In Speyer in 1570, the recess directed

265 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg (1524), §28.

266 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §159. “Darum gebieten und wollen Wir, dass alle und jede Stände, und Obrigkeiten, ob diesem Unsrem Gebott mit allem ernstlichen Fleiss halten, auch sonderlich ihre Truckereyen unverwarnter Ding visitiren, denn sie da in diesem jemand übersehen, colludiren oder keinen gebuhrenden Ernst und Straff gegen die Übertretter fürnehmen würden, sollen sie damit in Unsere schwere Ungnad gefallen seyn, und nach gestalten Dingen pro arbitrio von Uns gestrafft werden.”

267 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1548), §2. “…und soll nicht allein der Verkäuffer oder Feilhaber, sondern auch der Käuffer und andere, bei denen solche Bücher, Schmäh-Schrifften oder Gemählds-Passquills oder andere Weiss, sie seyen geschrieben, gemahlt, gedruckt, befunden, gefänglich angenommen, gütlich oder, wo es die Nothdurft erfordert, peinlich…”

268 Kaiserliche und des Reichs reformirte und gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), §3. “Und soll nicht allein der Verkauffer, oder Feylhaber, sondern auch der Käuffer, und andere, bey denen solche Bucher, Schmähschrifften oder Gemälds, Pasquills oder andere Weiss, sie seyen geschrieben, gemahlet oder getruck, befunden, gefanglich angenommen, gutlich oder wo es die Nothdurfft erfordert, peinlich…” 142

authorities to apprehend (begriffen) the printer of illegal defamatory works, along with the person “by whom such things were sold or otherwise distributed” (bey weme die zu kauffen oder sonsten auszubreiten).269

In practice, imperial authorities neither asked more from local authorities, nor attempted to accomplish more on their own, than the arrest of suspected libelers. The police ordinances in 1548 and 1577 demanded the detainment of any person caught distributing or in possession of a defamatory work for questioning. With the use of torture permitted, authorities interrogated suspects about whence the text came and who produced it, so that the author or whomever else was responsible could be located, arrested, and punished.270 The law did not interpret arrest, imprisonment, or even torture as punishments per se. In this period, measures such as arrest and imprisonment served as a holding period for offenders undergoing interrogation and awaiting sentencing.271 Sometimes these pre-judgment holding periods were quite lengthy, and sufficed as an ersatz term of punitive imprisonment accompanied by other penalties. This happened in the case of

Georg Zeämann, whose ordeal represented the sole instance of imperial authorities directly laying hold of an accused libeler. On 26 December 1628, Archduke Leopold V wrote to Emperor

Ferdinand II that “on this day the preacher from Kempten, Zeämann, has been brought to hand.”272

269 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §157.

270 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1548), §2; Kaiserliche und des Reichs reformirte und gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), §3. They repeat the same demand: “Und soll nicht allein der Verkauffer, oder Feylhaber, sondern auch der Käuffer, und andere, bey denen solche Bucher, Schmähschrifften oder Gemälds, Pasquills oder andere Weiss, sie seyen geschrieben, gemahlet oder getruck, befunden, gefanglich angenommen, gutlich oder wo es die Nothdurfft erfordert, peinlich, wo ihm solche Bücher, Gemälds oder Schrifft herkommen, gefragt, und so der Author oder ein ander, we der wäre, von dem er, der gefangen…” Emphasis added.

271 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 48.

272 26 December 1626, Archduke Leopold V to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1628, fols. 56-57; here 56r. 143

In the following days, Zeämann was marched to Leopold’s “fortress” (Festung) in Ehrenberg in the

Tirol. Zeämann spent the next sixty-two weeks captive there. Despite the considerable length of his time at Ehrenberg, authorities did not construe his imprisonment explicitly as a penalty for his alleged misconduct. His initial arrest and detainment were a prelude to his interrogation, which did not formally commence until the end of June 1629, after imperial authorities had already held him for six months.273

Although the sub-delegation interrogating him arrived at mixed conclusions about his guilt,

Zeämann nevertheless stayed at Ehrenberg for another six months without any change in his condition. The Imperial Aulic Council finally recommended a sentence to Emperor Ferdinand II in

December 1629. The Council insisted that Zeämann’s writings “went much too far” (viel zue weit gegangen), but they also conceded that adequate grounds for prolonging his detention were lacking.

On the one hand, Zeämann tirelessly maintained his innocence in the face of his tribulations and, perhaps more influentially, he had obtained the support of a powerful bloc of fellow Evangelicals, who were vocally frustrated at his unresolved predicament.274 On the other hand, the Council admitted that, from a juridical perspective, there was no good reason to keep him any longer.

Archduke Leopold had himself apparently relented, and thus “in this case, there is no legitimate accuser” (daß diß fahls khein Legitimus Accusator verhanden).275 It was time to consider the terms and conditions of Zeämann’s release. Emperor Ferdinand II formally capitulated nearly a month later.

273 The official report of the sub-delegation was sent to Archduke Leopold V on 22 July 1629 (HHStA, RHR BKR2, fasc. 1628-1656, convolute 1629, fols. 68-83), but according to the records, the interrogation questions and answers were compiled at the end of June.

274 06 December 1629, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA, RHR BKR2, fasc. 1628-1656, fols. 322-325; here fols. 322v-323r.

275 Ibid., 323r-323v.

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On 03 January, he ordered his brother, Archduke Leopold, to set Zeämann free (Praedicant Zehenman

Verhaft entlassen, auff freyen Fuß gestelt).276 If it was true that Zeämann passed a total of sixty-two weeks in Ehrenberg, as numerous contemporary biographical materials about Zeämann maintained, then he languished in captivity for several more weeks before returning to Kempten, even after Emperor

Ferdinand II’s letter of release.277 Thus ended the longest term of imprisonment for libel achieved by imperial authorities in the seventeenth century. Although Zeämann endured more than a year as an imperial detainee, the majority of his imprisonment was nevertheless a holding period for his interrogation and sentencing rather than a punishment.

Authorities also demanded the arrest of Zeämann’s contemporary, Theodor Thumm, for libel and sedition, with the important distinction that Thumm’s eventual imprisonment was punitive.

The bulk of Thumm’s trial unfolded while he was a free man, his person shielded by the protection of his lord and patron, Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg. Following a yearlong campaign for

Thumm’s extradition to Vienna, imperial officials and Johann Friedrich settled on Thumm’s incarceration in Castle Hohentübingen for six months, from January to June 1628. Yet, this punishment was a compromise outcome. From the outset, Thumm’s opponents clamored for his immediate apprehension: The full range of imperial power must be wielded against him, they argued,

276 03 January 1630, Emperor Ferdinand II to Archduke Leopold V, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1630-31, 1634, 1636- 1638, 1640-41, convolute 4, fols. 8-9; here 8v-9r.

277 Anonymous, Summarische Erläuterung / Deß von D. Georgen Zeaemans / sin seiner Verhafft erforderten Revers, etc: Sampt einem Theologischen Bedencken der Universitet Tübingen / wegen erwehnten Revers. Beneben einer Apologia / welche ermelter D. Zeaemann in wereder Verhafftung von sich gegeben. Alles in disem 1630. Jahr außgefertiget (1630). Some of the documents make quite clear that 03 January 1630 was the day he was released from captivity. However, Leopold V’s correspondence makes clear that he was arrested on 26 December 1629. That is not quite 62 weeks, so either he was arrested earlier or he did not return home until later. The precise length of his imprisonment, or when it began or ended, is an interesting point, but as far as I can tell, it holds no bearing on the main points: His arrest and imprisonment were the only example of such measures effected by imperial authorities directly in the period under consideration; it was therefore also the longest period of incarceration; and it was never construed as a punishment in itself, at least not until they decided to release him.

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as the best mechanism for quelling the menace his religious invectives posed to the public peace.278

The Imperial Aulic Council urged caution, however. It initially recommended that Johann Friedrich should assume the lead in Thumm’s case. He should deliver a punishment against Thumm consistent with imperial law and conduct an investigation into the University of Tübingen’s involvement in the production and distribution of libels.279 The archival records indicate that imperial interest in Thumm’s case stalled until 1627. As discussed above, the scale of Thumm’s seditious and libelous activities had made a stronger impression on imperial officials, namely because of Thumm’s continued provocation of his Jesuit opponents as well as the outbreak of the Upper

Austrian Peasants’ Rebellion.

It was not easy to move against the subject of another lord. The matter was complicated by the fact that the lord was the Duke of Württemberg, an Evangelical grandee on the imperial political scene. The imperial court, if it wanted seriously to pursue Thumm’s arrest, had to proceed carefully.

The Imperial Aulic Council’s procurator, Bartholomaeus Immendorff, erected the imperial case against Thumm on two pillars. First, he took on Thumm’s inflammatory libels, demonstrating in impressive detail their criminality according to imperial law, and thus asserting that the Empire had cause. Yet this was not sufficient in itself to approve direct imperial intervention, because the law also made it clear that local authorities were responsible for punishing their subjects. Second,

278 18 March 1625, Lorenz Forer to Wilhelm Lamormaini, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 17-18; here fol. 17r.

279 07 April 1625, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 28-30; here fols. 28v-29r. See also Franz, “Bücherzensur und Irenik,” 153. At the beginning of his brief treatment of Thumm’s ordeal, Franz noted, “Early in 1625, a report circulated that Thumm should be extradited to Vienna on account of a libel against Emperor Ferdinand II. An official edict was filed in Stuttgart on 07 May 1625 (27 April in the Old Style), which broadly labeled Thumm’s writings ‘libelous.’” Apart from the document issued by the Imperial Aulic Court cited here, the records at the Haus- Hof- und Staatsarchiv in Vienna contain no no additional imperial considerations of Thumm’s case, and no outgoing documents to the Duke of Württemberg in 1625. I am uncertain of the provenance of the report about his proposed extradition to Vienna in 1625, apart from Forer’s unofficial request, sent to Lamormaini, that Thumm ought to be arrested.

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Immendorff made a case against the demonstrable negligence of the Duke of Württemberg, who had failed to bring his reckless theologian to heel and had therefore surrendered his jurisdiction over

Thumm to imperial authorities.280 Immendorff recommended to the Council that they approve

Thumm’s immediate arrest, suggesting that Thumm should “by no means be left at large” (keines wegs uff freyen fueß gelassen).281 The Imperial Aulic Council agreed.282 Upon these recommendations,

Emperor Ferdinand II sent the imperial demands to the duke of Württemberg at the beginning of

February 1627. The emperor expressed his displeasure (mißfallen) with Thumm, whom he indicated the duke should now punish severely in accordance with the demands of the imperial law.283

Namely, Johann Friedrich must apprehend Thumm in the name of the emperor and hand him over

“immediately and without further delay” (wir bevelhen wöllen, das Sy sich in Unseren namen abgeben Thumen

Persohn alsobaldt ohne…Verzug).284

The Council’s diligence and the emperor’s backing did not assure Württemberg’s cooperation. As discussed above, imperial law certainly threatened the negligence of local authorities when it came to perceived leniency with lawbreakers. However, imperial legislation was characteristically non-specific; at most, it portended imperial disfavor. Disciplinary forbearance did not provide grounds for seizing jurisdictional prerogatives from sovereign princes. Duke Johann

Friedrich was mostly apologetic in his response to Emperor Ferdinand II’s letter, although he

280 08 January 1627, Bartholomaeus Immendorff to the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 87-94; here fols. 92v-94r.

281 Ibid., fol. 94r.

282 08 January 1627, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 97-99; here fol. 97v. “…demselben [Thumm] alsbald in gefenckliche Hafft nemmen zuelassen.”

283 03/13 February 1627, Emperor Ferdinand II to Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 104-105; here fols. 104v-105r.

284 Ibid., fol. 105v.

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expressed his bemusement at Thumm’s situation when Catholic writers could impugn adherents of the Augsburg Confession with apparent impunity.285 Otherwise, he was full of promises to assuage the emperor’s disappointment by taking appropriate action himself. He promised to comply with most of the emperor’s demands, and warn his theologians to exercise better restraint.286 Yet, at this time, he refused to arrest Thumm and transfer him to imperial custody. Thumm was his subject, his theologian, his professor, and his co-religionist.287

The emperor was unwilling to accept the duke’s pledges as satisfaction for Thumm’s offenses, which had gravely offended Ferdinand’s dignity and challenged his authority. A wag of the finger and a slap on the wrist were hardly proportionate penalties for inflaming religious hostilities and ridiculing the emperor for being inbred. In August 1627, the Council re-evaluated the case, ruminating on a self-effacing and exculpatory letter Thumm had sent to Johann Friedrich, who had then forwarded it to Vienna. Although the letter did not convince them of Thumm’s innocence, it became apparent to members of the Council that pursuit of Thumm was likely only to antagonize

Evangelicals. Circling back to their original recommendation from 1625, they believed it preferable to allow Johann Friedrich to administer punishment.288 For his part, Johann Friedrich acquiesced to these terms in order to strengthen his bargaining position vis-à-vis the impending restitution of

285 09 March 1627, Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625- 1627; fols. 116-119; here fol. 117r.

286 Ibid., fol. 116v. “…meinen Theologis die ernstliche Verfüegung angeschafft, daß sie sich inns gemein unnd besonders im Predigen, Lehren unnd schreiben aller gebuhrender moderation, beschaidenheit und discretion gebrauchen, und niemanden zu einiger billich: unnd rechtmeßiger offension die geringste Ursach geben sollen.”

287 Ibid., fols. 118r-118v.

288 25 August 1627, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 175- 180; here fol. 179v-180r.

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Württemberg’s monasteries.289 Thus, the duke punished Theodor Thumm with six months of imprisonment for composing and distributing libelous materials. It was a solution that neither side had desired, but had arrived at through negotiation and compromise.

Georg Zeämann had no influential protectors at his disposal to forestall imperial efforts to detain him. As a citizen of the imperial city of Kempten, Zeämann was technically the emperor’s subject. This did not mean that the emperor could blithely disregard the protestations of the city’s magistrates or its citizens. Although imperial authorities apprehended Zeämann, unlike Thumm, and detained him for a relatively long time, the process leading to Zeämann’s arrest was no less cautious; the decision to arrest Zeämann was not spontaneous. All such moves by imperial authorities had to navigate the Empire’s dense jurisdictional and political warrens. Vaguely worded legal entitlements offered little practical assistance when it came to laying hands on Kempten’s impertinent preacher. Instead, officials and legal experts deliberated carefully beforehand, as they had with Thumm. Emperor Ferdinand II finally indicated his resolve to arrest Zeämann only in

April 1628, three years after the Imperial Aulic Council learned of Zeämann’s offensive treatise.

Their first move, as it had been with Thumm, involved justifying their desire to take

Zeämann into custody, not only by showing that Zeämann had broken the law and was a danger to the public peace, but also that local authorities had neglected their charge. This resulted in the denunciation of Kempten’s leaders for wanton disregard of imperial law and the religious peace. If imperial officials alleged that Kempten had failed in its responsibilities to prevent and suppress libelous materials, then it was theoretically within the scope of the imperial court to take direct action. This approach fared little better in Zeämann’s case than it did in Thumm’s, as we shall discuss in a moment. For now, it is worth noting that arrest was not considered during the initial

289 Franz, “Bücherzensur und Irenik,” 155. 149

stage of imperial interest in Zeämann’s activities. In fact, when Zeämann first emerged on the imperial radar, Archduke Leopold urged imperial authorities to explore courses of action against the city of Kempten itself.290 According to Leopold, Kempten had failed to prevent the production and distribution of offensive, defamatory, and rabble-rousing materials as evidenced by Zeämann’s activities. Immendorff, writing privately to the Imperial Aulic Council in 1628, declared, not only had Kempten’s civic magistrates foundered in their obligation to stop the production of anti-

Catholic calumnies through the city’s lone printing press and to guard their own citizens against exposure to scandalous works, but they had not prevented Zeämann from poisoning other places with “heresies” (die Ketzereyen).291

Kempten lacked an indigenous print trade on the scale of cities like Augsburg, Nuremberg,

Strasbourg, and Frankfurt. Nor did it have recourse to a university press like Wittenberg, Tübingen,

Ingolstadt, and Dillingen. According to the VD17, the vast majority of Zeämann’s works between

1617 and 1628 had a single printer, Christoph Krause, who happened to be the only working printer in Kempten from 1609 to 1630. Krause was the first printer listed for Kempten in the seventeenth century and after he departed the city in 1630, the VD17 suggests that no printing took place in

Kempten again until the 1660s. Since Kempten lacked a booming print industry apart from

Krause’s press, it should have been comparatively easy for the city’s authorities to regulate.

290 27 October 1627, Archduke Leopold V to Ferdinand II, HHStA, RHR BKR2, fasc. 1625-1627, fols. 41-42; here fol. 41v.

291 1628, Bartholomaeus Immendorff to Emperor Ferdinand II, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1628, fols. 52-55; here fol. 53r. “…haben Herrn Burgermeister unnd Rath Eur. May. unnd deß heiligen Reichs Statt Kempten obberurte lasterhaffte Wunder unnd Walfarts Betha predig[en] nit allein in Ihren Kirchen offentlich zuethuen verhengt unnd selbsten denselben ungezweiffelt bey gewohnt, unnd angehört, sondern auch in calumnia[m] religionis Catholicae unnd derselben verwanten Hoher unnd Nidern Standts personen, zue divulgirn unnd auß zuebreiten, in Ihrer Truckherrey daselbsten zuetruckhen und feyl zuehaben gestattet und zuegelassen, Ja solchen gifft nach weiters zue diffundirn, unnd in andere landen außzuegiessen per consequens die Ketzereyen einzuefüehren….”

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Given the paucity of printing activity, the spread of Zeämann’s works to other centers requires explanation. On closer inspection, Krause undertook a number of joint ventures with printers and publishers from Augsburg during his time in Kempten. Because Augsburg was a bi- confessional city, monitored in absentia by Bishop Knöringen from Dillingen, it was possible that

Kempten, through Krause, served as a satellite for bookmen in Augsburg hoping to escape the scrutiny of its censors. These arrangements were common in other major printing hubs throughout the Empire. Satellite printing cities orbited Frankfurt, for example, where authors, printers, and publishers produced and distributed works they feared would fall afoul of the Imperial Book

Commission.292 Although additional research is necessary to confirm these suspicions about Krause and the local trade in Kempten, if true they would explain how Zeämann’s works, produced in a comparatively obscure city, reached the Empire’s more distant book markets – including Frankfurt’s.

In Immendorff’s assessment, the city’s regulatory negligence abetted, if it did not actively encourage, the spread of Zeämann’s libels. The city’s magistrates therefore bore burdens of responsibility in this case.

Compounding the difficulties for Kempten’s civic leaders was the public nature of

Zeämann’s offensive pronouncements. Zeämann was the city’s preacher. In that capacity, he had publicly delivered the sermons against miracles, pilgrimages, and the cult of saints that formed the basis for the New Mirror of Miracles. Moreover, Zeämann gave his name to the New Mirror of Miracles and the Apologia, in which he had defamed Catholic beliefs and practices and openly defended

Thumm’s malicious denigration of the emperor. He was a city official in his own right. Not only did the civic magistrates have a clear view of his activities, Zeämann himself apparently understood

292 MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 12-14.

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and supported demands for censorship, as he had assisted the local consistory with drafting its own censorship ordinance in 1622.293 From the perspective of imperial authorities, Kempten’s leaders had no legitimate excuse for their inattention, which, in consideration of these facts, appeared as brazen and malicious as Zeämann’s libels.

Finally, imperial authorities took note of Kempten’s history of supporting malcontented ne’er-do-wells. Antonio Albizzi (1547-1626), a Venetian-born author and genealogist, was a longtime resident of Kempten. He had served as secretary to Cardinal Andreas of Austria, which made Albizzi privy to sensitive information. Cardinal Andreas was technically a Habsburg, but had a complicated genealogy. His father was Archduke Ferdinand of Tirol, son of Emperor Ferdinand I and younger brother of Emperor Maximilian II. Archduke Ferdinand secretly married the daughter of an Augsburg patrician, with whom he fathered Andreas, thus consummating a morganatic marriage that Emperor Ferdinand I agreed to recognize if it remained secret. Following Cardinal

Andreas’ death, Albizzi converted to Lutheranism and moved to Kempten, where he solidified his legacy as a genealogist. His work included less-than-flattering presentations of the tangled family trees of leading Catholic dynasties, with a view toward indicting the papacy. Immendorff, therefore, was quick to point out that Kempten had given succor to Albizzi, whose residence happened to overlap with Zeämann’s, and that there was perhaps a conspiracy based in Kempten to degrade the

House of Habsburg and support the Upper Austrian Peasant Uprising.294

293 Ordnung der Censur, oder Geistlichen Kirchen-Gerichts zu Kempten, Im Jahr M. DC. XXII. auffgericht (Kempten, 1622). See also Wolfgang Wüst, “Zensur und Konfession in den Stadtrepublikan Oberdeutschlands,” in Zensur im Jahrhundert der Aufklärung: Geschichte-Theorie-Praxis, eds. Wilhlem Haefs and York-Gothart Mix (Göttingen: Wallenstein Verlag, 2006): 275-304; here 287-289.

294 1628, Immendorff to Emperor Ferdinand II, fol. 53v. “…hat ermelte Statt Kempten, oder Burgermeister unnd Rath daselbsten einen Nammens Albitium, so hie bevor in weylandt Herrn Cardinals Andreae von Osterreich, lobseligster gedachtnus diensten gewesen, ein…Zeit alda auf enthalten, welcher seithero alles, so ihm heilig[en] Romischen Reich wider die Christliche Kirch unnd Catholische Religion in teütscher Sprach außgangen…unnd in Italiam p[er] Venedig und andere Orth geschickt uber das als obbenanter Zeaemann nach bey werenden aufstandt der Bauren Ihm Landt Ob 152

While imperial officials justified Zeämann’s arrest by the failure of Kempten’s civic magistrates to fulfill their legal obligations, they encountered the same difficulties they had during

Thumm’s case. Namely, Evangelical observers were unconvinced that either imperial law or precedent warranted the proposed measures. It was suspicious that imperial authorities acted unilaterally to arrest a citizen of an imperial city, considering the law made no such provision and, by contrast, insisted strongly that the administration of penalties was the estates’ purview. Kempten’s magistrates, however, lacked the wherewithal to resist Emperor Ferdinand II as Duke Johann

Friedrich had done. Yet they endeavored to have their preacher restored to them. Kempten’s mayor, council, and citizens peppered Emperor Ferdinand II and Archduke Leopold with letters pleading for his forbearance and mercy. On 18 May 1629, Kempten’s citizens wrote to Leopold.

Zeämann’s innocence was evident, they claimed, since none among them had ever known Zeämann,

“our dear preacher,” to write, teach, or preach against the emperor, Archduke Leopold, or the

House of Austria.295 Apart from their confidence in Zeämann’s innocence, the citizenry brought up the procedural irregularity of the situation. The city had consulted its own judges and jurists. They determined that Zeämann’s case ought to be referred back to their jurisdiction, coming short of

der Ennß etwas, zweiffels frey night weniger in calumniam religionis unnd derselben Verwanten umb allerhandte verbitterungen unnd ungelegenheit gegen ein ander zuerweckhen, durch den Truckh publicirn zue lassen vorgehabt, is zwar ihm solches damaln con dem Rath eingestelt worden, aber anderer gestalt nicht, als das Er des außgangs der Rebellion ihm Landt Ob der Ennß erwarten solle, unnd als dan, wan der Sieg, oder Victoria uff der Rebellion Bauren seiten außschlagen wurde, Er desto sicherer ungehindert mit seinem vorgehabten Truckh fortfaren konte.”

295 18 May 1629, Citizens of Kempten to Archduke Leopold V, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1629, fols. 58-59; here fol. 58r. “Wir seind der Underthänigsten getrösten Hoffnung und zueverfüeht gewesen, weil ainicher Mensch alhie nuhe gelesen noch gehört, daß unsern lieber Pfarer Herr Dr. Georg Zeaemann, wider die Römische Kauserliche Maytt. undern allergnädigsten Herr und ainigs Oberhaubt noch [Leopold] oder der hochloblichst Erzhauß iemahlen geschriben, gelehrt, oder gepredigt, er werde bey [Leopold] alls dem in aller Welth höchstberüembten mültesten Fursten deß durchleuchtigsten Erzfurstlichen Hauß Oessterreich sich der massen underthänigst verantwurt[en], daß [Leopold] darauß sein unschuldt gnädigst verspüren, und Ihne Dr. Zeaemann deßweg[en] unaufgehallten wider zue unßlassen.”

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arguing on behalf of expunging the case altogether.296 The onus for regulation and punishment, as imperial laws constantly reminded, fell on the shoulders of local authorities, whom imperial officials had denied the opportunity to set matters right. This was the nature of the campaign to free

Zeämann from imperial custody: Confidence in Zeämann’s innocence was twinned with self- defense; local authorities insisted they had not failed in their charge so much as imperial authorities had robbed them of their chance to fulfill it.

The Evangelical response to Zeämann’s imprisonment weighed on the outcome. While

Kempten, Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg, and the Swabian Kreis all wrote intercessions for

Zeämann during his incarceration, Zeämann’s most formidable advocate was Elector Johann Georg of Saxony. The former cohort had a more obvious claim to jurisdiction over Zeämann’s case than did Johann Georg to be sure, but they lacked his influence. The elector was an ideal advocate, too, because he stood on surer jurisdictional footing regarding Zeämann than did imperial authorities.

The elector’s involvement resulted partially from the fact that Zeämann had dedicated his Apologia to the elector. Because imperial authorities cited the Apologia among Zeämann’s libelous books, Johann

Georg had been drawn into the case obliquely: Johann Georg may have felt compelled to defend the integrity of a man (Zeämann) to whom the he had shown favor. In the beginning of his missive, the

Saxon elector refrained from debating Zeämann’s guilt or innocence. Instead, he questioned whether Leopold and Ferdinand had followed proper procedure in taking Zeämann from his rightful lords in Kempten. He voiced concerns, thereafter echoed by the citizens of Kempten, that the imperial sub-delegation appointed by Archduke Leopold had improperly interfered in the

296 Ibid., fol. 58v.

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Kempten city council’s legal efforts. They had seized Zeämann and hauled him to Ehrenberg with such haste that Kempten’s legal obligations had gone unfulfilled.297

The key moment in Johann Georg’s letter came when he raised questions of the broader impact of these proceedings on the Empire’s peace and stability. The contest over Zeämann’s person was transfigured into a micro-struggle for the future of the Empire. Perceptions of the emperor’s confessional neutrality were at stake. Without confidence in the emperor’s ability to adjudicate the Religious Peace impartially, the unity and harmony of the Empire would ineluctably founder on confessional antipathy. Time would tell, the elector mused, whether such an “unusual trial” (ungewöhnlich Proceß) would erode justice.298 Would Zeämann’s arrest and imprisonment promote the “long wished-for peace” (so lang gewünschten Frieden befördern), or would it undermine the spirit of reconciliation by intensifying mistrust (oder nicht vielmehr zu noch mehrer Mißtrawen anlaß geben werde)?299 The elector clearly had the travails of the sixteenth century on his mind. “Where doctrinal matters are concerned,” he lamented, “we shudder to recall a time before the Religious Peace when

Evangelical preaching was forbidden, preachers were bullied for doctrinal reasons and who, for unheard and unknown causes, were hauled out of their offices.”300 The precariousness of the times exacerbated the danger. In such a context, where the return of confessional conflagration was

297 30 December 1628, Elector Johann Georg of Saxony to Archduke Leopold V, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1628, fols. 60-63; here fols. 60r-61r.

298 Ibid., fol. 61r.

299 Ibid.

300 Ibid., fols. 61r-61v. “…umb die doctrinalia zuthun, so wüsten wir uns nicht zuerinnern, daβ sieder dem uffgerichteten Religionfrieden, oder auch zuvorn, Evangelischen Predigern verbothen, doctrinalia zu tractieren, oder dergleichen procedure mit Evangelischen Predigern fürgenommen, und deren einer inaudita et incognita causa iemahln also aus seinem Ampt geruckt worden.”

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perilously near, it was dangerous business to promote the cynicism of the Evangelical estates.301

Johann Georg did not doubt the testimony of Zeämann’s fellow citizens, that the preacher possessed a peaceable disposition, and was known for his discretion, understanding, obedience, and respect.302 The elector was confident that, if given the opportunity to explain himself, as imperial authorities should have allowed him in the first place, Zeämann could convince them of his innocence. As it stood, Leopold inflamed resentment by allowing Zeämann’s Jesuit opponents to dictate legal procedures and had convinced the emperor to deliver Zeämann into the hands of his enemies.303

The elector encouraged Zeämann’s release using the same rationale that had informed the decision to arrest Zeämann in the first place. The purpose of imperial censorship laws consisted in promoting peace and unity and avoiding division and unrest. According to imperial authorities,

Zeämann’s detainment was necessary to avoid unrest. According to Johann Georg, Zeämann’s arrest would foster unrest. By circumventing the prerogatives of local authorities to determine guilt and punish criminals, the imperial government’s reach had exceeded its grasp and excited the bitterness of the Evangelical estates. Imperial officials responded grudgingly to this line of reasoning. As the Imperial Aulic Council cautioned in the light of Thumm’s case in 1627, irritating the Empire’s evangelical estates achieved nothing valuable and sacrificed whatever goodwill remained.304 Prominent Lutherans had written on Zeämann’s behalf, suggesting that the Evangelical estates were agitated. As both the Imperial Aulic Council and Emperor Ferdinand II noted, this was

301 Ibid., fol. 61v.

302 Ibid.

303 Ibid.

304 25 August 1627, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Ferdinand II, fols. 179v-180r.

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a significant consideration for Zeämann’s release. The Imperial Aulic Council echoed the

Evangelicals’ sentiments, noting that they believed the ordeal against Zeämann’s person was

“unusual” (ungewöhnlich), and it had increased mistrust among the Evangelical estates.305 For this reason, perhaps the time had come to end Zeämann’s imprisonment, conceding that his current term, already more than a year long, was sufficient to teach him a lesson.306 Emperor Ferdinand II agreed, with a few caveats. Zeämann’s release, the emperor insisted, was a demonstration of imperial mercy and not a pronouncement of innocence or an endorsement of his work. Zeämann’s works, still considered “forbidden calumnies” and attacks on the “saints of God” and “our venerable Catholic religion,” were illegal, as were all similar materials.307 As a condition of his release, the emperor ordered Zeämann to refrain from producing sermons or texts against

Catholicism, which remained libelous and for which he could expect re-imprisonment.308

Discursus: Punishment of the Body and the Violence of the State Reconsidered

Because libel was an ambiguous, contingent, subjective, and constructed category, the number of libelous books in circulation was not accurately measurable and cannot be used as a standard for judging imperial success or failure. Perhaps it would be preferable to assess how many people were punished for libel, and in what way, as a metric for discussing the successes and failures of imperial censorship policies. This approach assumes that, since censorship played a prominent

305 06 December 1629, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Ferdinand II, fol. 322v.

306 Ibid., fol. 323v. “…Er, durch die biβ daher auβgestandene und nunmehr fast ein gantz Jahr lang continuierende gefenknus, zinlicher massen gediemütiget und abgebüest, und solche Correction sich zu einer Wahrung wohl werde diehnen lassen.” It was at this point that his imprisonment changed from a holding period to a punishment.

307 03 January 1630, Emperor Ferdinand II to Archduke Leopold V, fols. 8r-8v.

308 Ibid., fol. 8v. 157

role in the emergence of the absolutist police state, and since libel played a prominent role in early modern censorship, a sign of success would consist of how effective the state was in arresting, imprisoning, or chastising the bodies of libelers for their crimes. Darnton has relied on this assumption in his study of libel in pre-Revolutionary France, for example. He rightly observes that historians have paid little attention to libel, and notes that, because early modern authorities took libel seriously, historians should also.309 How can historians tell that early modern French officials took libels seriously? Because they clapped so many libelers in irons and threw them into the

Bastille! Although he admits that “owing to ambiguities in the definition and compilation of offenses, no rigorous statistics can be produced,” Darnton does not hesitate to hazard a

“preliminary calculation” of those imprisoned for libel-related crimes.310

Why was corporal punishment of such high value for assessing the importance of some crime or another? The short answer is because it is what states do. Darnton observes that French prisons held people arrested for “crimes connected with libelles” in far greater numbers than “those arrested for perpetrating atheism, deism, encyclopedism, libertinism, radical political theory, or other kinds of writing associated with the Enlightenment, whether counted separately or lumped together as a whole.”311 Ergo, the French state was more serious about libels than other violations of French law and moral order. The state’s willingness to punish the bodies of libelers in greater numbers than, say, atheists is a testament to libel’s superior significance. This way of thinking about historical significance accords with historiographical arguments about the origins and early shape of modernity. Standard models for the Rise of the State – which historians so relentlessly equate with

309 Darnton, The Devil in the Holy Water, 258.

310 Ibid., 257-258.

311 Ibid., 258. 158

the dawn of modernity that the two are functionally equivalent – have trended in two related directions, both of which obsess over the relationship between violence and the state. In the first place, the “civilizing process” of state formation relied upon the “monopoly of violence” and the necessity of eliminating “primitive violence” of the medieval world (i.e. a world without states).312

The civilizing violence of the state remedied the medieval problem of primitive violence, and was followed by laws that criminalized violence by anyone but the sovereign.

This makes a certain amount of sense based on what we have seen of censorship and the criminalization of libel in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, even if we set aside the problematic notion of medieval “primitive violence” in favor of more recent historiography that argues for the rationality of popular violence.313 Smail remarked of the tradition that, “By restoring the logic of violence…historians have exposed the hidden motives of kings and states. The emerging monopoly on the legitimate exercise of coercive force, in this view, had nothing to do with a sovereign desire for peace. The state was instead born in sin and violence. States repressed everyday violence out of a desire to generate spectacles of power. They sought monopolies of violence in order to deploy violence against their many enemies, both real and imagined.”314 If the

312 Daniel Lord Smail, “Violence and Predation in Late Medieval Europe,” in Comparative Studies in Society and History 54 (2012): 7-34.

313 Ibid., 9-10. Smail argues, “In the early 1990s, as the harvest of postmodernism began to fill the pages of medieval scholarship, interest in violence exploded among medievalists. Over the space of a few short years, articles and books in the areas of medieval studies containing the word ‘violence’ in their titles increased nine-fold in frequency. Almost without exception, what this literature has queried is the idea that violence was impulsive and mindless. The trend today is to explain violence as political, strategic, and calculating. As one collection has put it, ‘Violence was not an expression of the irrationality and extreme emotions of medieval people but a product of their rationality, a behavior well understood and strategically deployed.’ […] The new school of thought has done much to recuperate the period before 1200 as an actual society rather than a Lord of the Flies anarchy. If customary vengeance flourished in the early and high Middle Ages, that was because it formed part of a legal system.”

314 Ibid., 10. This follows the logic set forth in R. I. Moore’s The Formation of a Persecuting Society, where he argued that the identification, classification, and extirpation of deviant groups – heretics, lepers, witches – did not respond to an increased presence of those groups per se, but rather accompanied a push to obtain more land and power by the persecutors. 159

impulse to exert power through a monopolization of violence had rooted in the high- and late

Middle Ages, then the Reformation, confessionalization, and the rise of the absolutist, police state intensified the drive toward control and suppression. Burgeoning interventionist police states in the

Empire, as elsewhere in Europe, in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries strove to police as many facets of public life as possible, which included closer control over written and spoken expression of the variety that might result in non-official, popular violence.315

As we have seen, legal tradition dating to Roman antiquity identified as defamation a variety of non-physical, verbal injury and thus a form of violence legally equivalent to physical violence.

Hence, rulers, sovereigns, and magistrates outlawed “unofficial” public shaming and ridicule as a means for regulating social norms, since they claimed the right to police such things for themselves.316 As discussed by Foucault and integrated into subsequent historiography, even the pre-modern state countered violence of all sorts through coercion of the body, using the affliction of pain as a manifestation of official power.317 In brief, violence always counters violence. According

315 Marc Raeff, “The Well-Ordered Police State and the Development of Modernity in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century Europe: An Attempt at a Comparative Approach,” in The American Historical Review 80 (1975): 1221-1243.

316 Adam Fox, “Ballads, Libels and Popular Ridicule in Jacobean England,” in Past & Present No. 145 (1994): 47-83; here 54-55 and 77-78. Fox argues throughout the article that libels were a way for people without official power to vent their frustrations, particularly with regard to grievances with their social betters. However, as Fox notes, the early modern period witnessed a subtle transition in how authorities handled them in England, which I believe has corollaries with what had been shown of libel in the Empire. He says, “Libel and slander had traditionally been considered moral offences, dealt with by the ecclesiastical authorities, but during this period they also came to be defined as ‘criminal’; seditious if directed against persons in authority and breaches of the peace if touching private individuals.” Fox claims that popular ridicule served as a kind of safety valve, echoing somewhat Natalie Zemon-Davis’ now classic study, “The Reasons of Misrule: Youth Groups and Charivaris in Sixteenth-Century France,” in Past & Present No. 50 (1971): 41-75 and R. W. Scribner’s, “Reformation, Carnival and the World Turned Upside Down,” in Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London and Ronceverte: The Hambledon Press, 1987): 71-101.

317 Smail discusses this trend in his study, “Violence and Predation,” 8-9. Smail observed, “At the heart of this transformation from private violence to public counter-violence, according to the standard model, was a system of justice centered on the body and its pain. This system did not give way, in Michel Foucault’s variation on the standard model, until the emergence of the Panopticon in the nineteenth century, when the body was still coerced but in a different way. Critics have pointed out the flaws in Foucault’s reasoning, and other schemes abound. But many observers have agreed with Foucault that pain was a fundamental symbol of the premodern penal system, and that the 160

to these models, one would expect the state to counter the violence of libel through the counter- violence of bodily punishment; i.e. arrest, imprisonment, torture, and perhaps even execution.

Imperial censorship can safely be deemed a failure on this basis. This fits well with the long-held and prevailing opinion on the failure of the Holy Roman Empire as a state. If we look at the record for imperial arrests and imprisonment for those accused of authoring libels (only two), this view could hold water. It seems safe to conclude that, based on the evidence presented in this dissertation, the prevailing model holds.

I would like to problematize this conclusion, if only for the sake of raising questions for future research. The attempts of imperial authorities in the 1620s to “coerce the bodies” of

Theodor Thumm and Georg Zeämann were exceptions to both previous and subsequent imperial strategies for dealing with libelers (and all others who violated imperial censorship laws). Their arrests and imprisonments were products of circumstance and opportunity: Legal proceedings against both of them occurred at the same time, for the same reasons, involved the same antagonists, and resulted in similar outcomes. They occurred at just the time when Emperor

Ferdinand II, arguably the most convinced Counter-Reformation emperor of the period, was at the height of his influence following his triumph over the Bohemian rebels. These were episodes in the history of imperial censorship, and should not color modern assessments of imperial censorship’s aims, expectations, and outcomes. Where does that leave us?

The imperial government in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not a fully-fledged police state, possessing neither the resources nor the will to monitor and punish its subjects and citizens comprehensively. While the imperial government, in short, took libel quite seriously, it did

body, as Foucault put it, was ‘the major target of penal repression.’ Old Regime sovereignty, in this model, was built on the rumors of torture and the spectacles of punishment that displayed the frightening capacity of the state to visit violence on the bodies of subjects.”

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not show much interest in arresting or imprisoning suspected libelers. Imperial censorship policies, as libel cases demonstrated, were ambiguous and inconsistent, but neither repressive nor hegemonic.

Corporeal punishments were seldom, and grounded in unique circumstances. All the sources for this dissertation make clear that the purpose of imperial censorship consisted in the avoidance of unrest and the preservation of peace. The archival records make equally clear the fact that arresting and imprisoning accused libelers, who were often prominent members of their communities in this period, threatened to undermine the peace and stability that censorship laws sought to protect in the first place. Much of this was a product of the decentralized structure of the Empire, and the imperial government’s willingness to rely on local authorities to administer and enforce censorship laws, more or less at their own discretion. This will be taken up in much more detail in Chapter Five below. For now, doubts about the efficacy of bodily punishments should direct our attention to other putative measures, namely those directed against the material interests of suspected libelers.

Material Punishments: Fines, Confiscation, and Suspension of the Trade

Imperial authorities preferred penalties against the goods and property of recalcitrant bookmen rather than against their bodies. Unlike physical punishments, which as we saw in the previous section were limited to arrest and imprisonment, imperial censorship laws and mandates offered a variety of potential punishments leaning on finances and revenues. It was, in other words, far more common for imperial officials to seek confiscation of goods than the coercion of the body when punishing violations of censorship laws. Imperial officials punished the creators, producers, and distributors of libelous materials in three ways: Through fines, the confiscation of illicit materials, and the suspension – or forfeiture – of the trade. The next part of this chapter examines all three types of penalties and proposes that, by targeting the money matters of the book trade, this 162

brand of coercion proved a potent disincentive to the production and distribution of libelous and otherwise illegal printed materials.

Direct recourse to fines, apart from elusive references to the enforcement of a “burdensome penalty” (schwähre Straff), which may or may not have included fines as such, were not forthcoming in either sixteenth-century recesses or seventeenth-century mandates. Imperial legislation demanded the payment of fines in the two major police ordinances of the sixteenth century, at Augsburg in

1548 (both in the recess and in the associated ordinance) and Frankfurt in 1577.318 Both threatened fines of unspecified size – except in the Augsburg Edict, which set the amount at 500 fl. – to be paid to the local authorities, to whom it presumably fell to determine the extent of the fines where unspecified. Fines were a rare outcome for libel. The imperial records do not record a definitive attempt to extract a fine from any accused libelers, and do not indicate whether it had ever succeeded. I can offer only (informed) conjecture. On the one hand, because the imperial legislation made clear that local authorities were responsible for fines, it is possible that if any fines were issued, the archive for the imperial court will not possess them. Gunther Franz, in his treatment of Theodor Thumm, observed that, in addition to his six months of imprisonment in

Castle Hohentübingen, he was allegedly obliged to pay a very hefty fine of 2,000 gulden.319

Fines were perhaps not as feasible as other forms of financial pressure that coerced compliance. The early modern book trade did not operate as a cash economy. Even though it is

318 Augsburg’s two documents – the recess and the ordinance – made clear it was referring to fines because they referenced a monetary sum, either specified (i.e. 500 fl.) or unspecified (X gulden). The police ordinance from Frankfurt in 1577 reverts to a more general reference (schweren Peen) identifiable as a fine, perhaps, its use of the verb “to pay” (bezahlen).

319 Franz, “Bücherzensur und Irenik,” 155. Apart from Franz’s suggestion of the fine, I have encountered no evidence that Thumm was aksed, or in fact actually paid, a fine in that (or any) amount, whether to authorities in Vienna or Stuttgart.

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difficult to assess yearly incomes in this period, it is safe to conclude that a fine between 500 and

2000 gulden would have represented a ruinous loss to most individuals. Fining their subjects may not have been a major issue for local authorities, who could more easily resort to predation in order to amortize debts than could the imperial government.320 Confiscation was the most immediate and common response to the discovery – or the allegation – of illicit materials, including libels. The recess for the imperial diet at Speyer in 1570 averred that all transgressors of the law against libelous printed materials would suffer the forfeiture of said-books in addition to the shuttering of the print shop.321 Confiscation tended to affect the printers, publishers, and booksellers more visibly than authors, because their book stocks functioned as liquid capital in lieu of cash. Yet, authors, editors, or translators, frequently funded these endeavors to defray costs, offset risks, and ensure production in printing ventures. Therefore, one can conceive of the confiscation of books as a kind of fine, and one that could prove calamitous.

According to imperial law, violations of censorship regulations, particularly with regard to defamatory materials that disturbed the peace, would result in the revocation of the offender’s privilege to practice their trade.322 Whether this suspension was permanent or temporary, the legislation did not say, although the language used – referring to the “resignation of the trade” (bei

Niederlegung ihres Handwerks) and the “forfeiture of the printing shop” (bey Verlust…Truckereyen) – gave the impression that the loss was permanent. However, as in many other aspects of imperial

320 Smail, “Violence and Predation,” 12-13. Predation, according to Smail, was a form of state-sponsored, non-physical violence, which amounted to the seizing of goods and property for the repayment of (originally private) debts.

321 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §156.

322 Der Römisch Kayserl. Majestat Ordnung und Reformation guter Polizei (Augsburg 1548), XXXIV, “Von Schmähschrifften, Gemählden und Gemächten,”§1; Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §156; Kaiserliche und des Reichs reformirte und gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), XXXV, “Von Buchtruckern Schmähschrifften schmählichen Gemähls, gedicten und Anschlägen,” §2.

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censorship legislation, these were not commandments. They were recommendations, ways for the administrators of imperial law (i.e. the local authorities) to gauge the stringency of their enforcement efforts.

As far as imperial involvement in libel cases went, there was no evidence for the enforcement of a full, permanent resignation of the trade handed down to printers, publishers, or sellers. Rather, authorities favored temporary closures. Theodosius Rihel, the Strasbourg printer arrested for adulterating and selling copies of Michael Beuther’s continuation of Sleidan’s history, returned to his trade after his ordeal, issuing works from Strasbourg into the seventeenth century.

In fact, in the wake of his difficulties, imperial authorities recruited Rihel to assist Valentin Leucht and the Imperial Book Commission with collecting and portaging other bookmens’ exemplars at the

Frankfurt book fairs. He was first mentioned in this capacity in a report from 1597 that requested assistance for the Commission in the execution of its activities, although the precise nature of Rihel’s association with the Commission was not yet specified.323 In the winter of 1598, he sent an independent report about the collection of exemplars, and the following spring, having integrated himself more fully with the Commission, he signed a visitation report alongside Johann Vest and

Valentin Leucht.324 The following year, the Commission’s report identified Rihel as “our adjunct” in the visitation of bookshops and stalls and the reception of exemplars.325 Rihel continued these types of supporting activities intermittently into the seventeenth century. In 1601, Leucht and Vest

323 09 August 1597, Johann Vest and Valentin Leucht to the Imperial Vice Chancellor, HHStA RHR BKR2, fasc. 1596- 1600, fols. 23-25; here 23r.

324 26 January 1598, Theodosius Rihel to the Imperial Aulic Council, fasc. 1596-1600, fols. 32-37; 24 April 1598, Johann Vest, Valentin Leucht, and Theodosius Rihel to the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1596-1600, fols. 43-46; here fol. 46r.

325 22 April 1599, Johann Vest and Valentin Leucht to the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1596-1600, fols. 64-65; here fol. 64r.

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included a note at the end of the Commission’s report on the spring fair, stating that Theodosius

Rihel had arranged transportation for the fair’s privileged books (und ist der Fuhrlohn allhie durch H.

Theodosium Rihelium darvon außgericht worden).326 Finally, in 1608, the year of Rihel’s death, a list of books delivered to Rihel by the fairs’ bookmen was included in the Commission’s report.327

Whether Rihel was compelled – or felt obligated – to perform such services for imperial authorities because of his previous encounter is currently unknown and remains an interesting consideration for the future. In any event, his subsequent involvement with the Imperial Book Commission demonstrates that violations of imperial law, as he was accused of committing vis-à-vis Michael

Beuther in the 1570s, did not necessarily result in a permanent revocation of the trade and could actually deepen one’s involvement with it.

The absence of permanent closures of presses and shops at imperial behest resulted from several possible factors. The printing houses at the center of many of these cases were well established. Theodosius Rihel was a second-generation printer in Strasbourg. His father, Wendel

Rihel, had operated an influential press during the Reformation in Strasbourg, producing editions of

Luther’s works along with the early editions of Johannes Sleidan’s De statu religionis et republicae Carola

V. Caesare commentaria in 1555, the year of his death. His sons, Josiah and Theodosius, took up the family business, although they appear to have operated separate firms. Although the exact dimensions of his kinship network is unknown at present, the high volume of Rihels working in the print trade from Strasbourg to Kiel, and from Rostock to Wittenberg, suggests that Theodosius had widespread familial connections with printers and printing firms throughout the Empire. For his part, Theodosius’s was productive throughout the sixteenth century. The nature of his productions

326 20 April 1601, Valentin Leucht et al. to the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fols. 2-7; here fol. 4r.

327 03 November 1608, Theodosius Rihel, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fol. 63. 166

revealed a strong affinity with the Strasbourg Academy, where Michael Beuther was employed, suggesting that his was a valuable firm in Strasbourg.

Considering his connections, productivity, and potential influence, it was not practical to revoke his trade privileges permanently, not only from the perspective of the Strasbourg city magistrates, but also from that of imperial authorities. Even though it may not have been their intention from the start, utilizing Rihel’s reputation and resources may have attracted the Imperial

Book Commission. Negative perceptions of the Commission, as an agency of imperial interests and staffed most visibly by Catholics, contributed to (but did not necessarily determine) the difficulties it experienced carrying out its appointed tasks, most especially collecting due exemplars from bookmen attending the Frankfurt fairs (see Chapter Six below). Rihel was an insider in the book trade whose Protestant credentials seemed beyond reproach. Relying on him had two potentially salutary effects. First, involving him in imperial oversight of the trade in Frankfurt, by making him an adjunct imperial official himself, drew Rihel closer to imperial interests. He was more likely to ingratiate himself to imperial favor and therefore less likely to challenge imperial principles and interests. His example could provide a positive role model for others. It was an important strategy for imperial censorship – for oversight at all levels, really – to strike mutually beneficial bargains with the Empire’s bookmen. Possessing neither large police forces nor armies of censors, authorities relied heavily on the self-regulation of the print trade. Members of the trade tended to be more compliant with censorship demands in exchange for official protections of their interests, which principally came from print privileges. As mentioned previously, Rihel’s motivations for becoming involved with the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt are yet unclear, so it is equally unclear what, if anything, he received in return for his services. However, considering not only his previous run-in with imperial authorities, but also that several of Rihel’s major printing projects, including 167

Beuther’s books, bore an imperial print privilege, it may have been in his best interests to cultivate imperial favor.

The reason for closing a print or bookshop was similar to the reason for detaining people:

Shuttering a shop “arrested” business, and ostensibly gave officials time to investigate further. It applied pressure on the shop’s proprietor, whose otherwise uncontroversial wares languished behind closed doors. It could motivate them to cooperate with authorities. While Rihel assisted imperial censors after his ordeal, desperation compelled other bookmen to work as informants. In the intervening days or weeks that separated official closing from reopening, authorities hectored the beleaguered bookmen for a variety of information about authors, printers, trade networks, and shipments. This strategy echoed imperial law’s injunction about detaining bookmen in order to ask them “by whom such books, libels, images, pasquinades, or whatever they might be were written, painted, or printed, and whence such books, paintings, or writings came.”328 Whether these officials physically detained bookmen or not, their shops stayed closed until authorities were satisfied.

Authorities seemed especially concerned with texts whose provenance was deliberately obscured; namely, cases of anonymous or pseudonymous materials. Since the (real) author and location of publication were not supplied, authorities debriefed those caught selling them about how such wares had come into their possession. In the summer months of 1641, imperial authorities closed the store (Gewölbe) of Johann Atterodt, who officials had caught in possession of a

“dangerous little treatise” (gefehrliches getruckhtes Tractatlein), as first reported in a missive from

Emperor Ferdinand III.329 A person with whom we are already familiar, Jesuit theologian and

328 Kaiserliche und des Reichs reformirte und gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (Frankfurt 1577), Ch. XXXV, “Von Bucktruckern Schmähschriften schmählichen Gemähls, gedicten und Anschlägen,” §3.

329 22 June 1641, Emperor Ferdinand III, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 101-102; here fol. 101r.

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professor Laurenz Forer, had allegedly presented this treatise, entitled Why His Imperial Majesty Should

Desire neither Peace in the Holy Roman Empire nor a General Amnesty, to Emperor Ferdinand III. It was a forgery, as Forer did not author the treatise. There was no place of publication. The treatise, which attempted to cast the influential Jesuit as an opponent of compromise and peace, circulated in

Regensburg, where the imperial diet was then convened. The duplicity combined with the context to “give occasion,” in Emperor Ferdinand III’s words, “for more bitterness” (und nun zue mehrer

Verbitterung der gemuether anlaß und Ursach geben thuet), and thereby complicate the proceedings.330

The circumstances of the treatise’s discovery were not discussed. Ferdinand III did not mention Atterodt’s name in his memorandum, which might suggest that Atterodt, who owned and operated a bookstore, was not caught selling the treatise. Authorities, whom the emperor ordered to investigate the matter of the treatise’s production, arrived at Atterodt’s complicity on the suspicion that Wolfgang Endter’s Nuremberg printing firm had produced it.331 Johann Atterodt, as it turned out, was a citizen of Nuremberg and worked as Endter’s wholesaler (Buchführer) and “bookshop attendant” (Buchladen Diener) in Regensburg, where Endter apparently kept a storehouse and sold his wares. Atterodt, who was apparently not a printer and did not produce the treatise himself, proclaimed his innocence and expressed confusion at the fact that “the store, whence I sell and hold for sale books that my lord [Endter] sends me, has been closed.”332 Other documents suggest, too, that confusion was the immediate response to the closing of Atterodt’s store by local officials. The timeline is difficult to establish precisely, but it seems that imperial authorities moved with unprecedented swiftness against the offending pamphlet and its suspected distributor. The initial

330 Ibid.

331 Ibid.

332 23 June 1641, Johann Atterodt to Emperor Ferdinand III, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 104-105; here 104r.

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missive from Emperor Ferdinand III was dated 22 June. On the next day, the record contains not only a letter from the Regensburg city council concerning the matter, but also Atterodt’s pleadings.

The case was resolved by 5 July with a letter from imperial investigators and an enclosed exculpatory letter from Wolfgang Endter himself. This was an unprecedentedly swift resolution. Typically, the archival records reveal that years could transpire in censorship cases. In this instance, imperial proximity to the site of controversy may have helped speed the case along. The emperor and his retinue – including the individuals assigned to investigate the treatise – were in Regensburg, where the pamphlet circulated and Atterodt operated, which permitted imperial authorities to work more quickly than had heretofore been the case with other suspected libels in the Empire.

The rapidity with which imperial authorities had closed Atterodt’s shop caused a great deal of bewilderment and consternation, however. For Atterodt, who did not print the text and, on his testimony, sold it only because his boss (Endter) had sent it to him, the closing of his shop for investigative purposes seemed to be punishment for a crime of which he was innocent. He expressed no discernible reservation about the alleged illegality of the treatise per se, but was obviously unnerved by the closing of his shop, which prevented him from selling his other uncontested books. He was incredulous at the notion that this treatise represented sufficient cause to close his shop.333 Endter later sent a letter of excuse, for both himself and for Atterodt, claiming ignorance about the offensive contents of the treatise. Efforts to restore Atterodt’s shop involved two steps, which ultimately worked to satisfy imperial authorities: Insistence on the innocence of parties involved and muddying the jurisdictional waters. In these respects, attempts to liberate an

“arrested” bookshop bore a resemblance to efforts at liberating people incarcerated for libel.

333 Ibid., fol. 104v. “…zumahl mir noch unwissent, warumb eigentlich solch gewölb, und verschlieβ gesperrt, und auff ein order den andern fall, das Jenige tractätl., so etwa ein versach möchte gegeben haben, köndte weggeraumbt, und ander dienliche Büecher, nach welchen täglich die nachfrag, dem begierigen kauffer gefolgt werden.”

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Although authorities stopped short of accusing Endter explicitly of authoring the treatise, he nevertheless adopted the defensive strategy commonly evoked against accusations of composing a libel: abjuring malicious intent. In this instance, he denied malicious intent in the act of printing and selling the treatise, whereas authors, as we have previously seen, denied malice in the writing of such works. Echoing Georg Zeämann, whose personal letter to Jesuit Marcus Nöelius disclaimed a guilty conscience, Endter also disavowed a “deceitful intent” regarding the treatise’s sale. Instead of malice, he claimed ignorance. Endter could not claim total ignorance of the treatise, of course.

Authorities had located copies in Atterodt’s shop, and Atterodt had confessed to selling a few.

More troublesome for Endter’s defense, Atterodt admitted at the outset that Endter had sent the exemplars to Regensburg. Endter could not therefore disavow contact with the treatise whatsoever, at least not without raising doubts about Atterodt’s trustworthiness, which was unlikely to help the endeavor to reopen Atterodt’s shop. Rather, Endter asserted his ignorance about the treatise’s origins, on the one hand, and about its contents, on the other. It was a forgery so convincing that it had successfully fooled even a printer as experienced as Endter, apparently.

This alone may not have totally satisfied imperial officials. Endter endeavored to show that he had had little enough contact with the treatise for its deceitfulness conceivably to escape his attention. Even though Endter operated a large and successful printing firm, he had not printed these treatises. He came into possession of them innocently, he explained, when they were included

– unsolicited – along with books sent to him from elsewhere. “A few months ago,” recalled Endter,

“several bales of books from Hamburg, Bremen, and Erfurt were forwarded to me along with a 171

strange little packet,” which, as it turned out, contained 200 exemplars of the contested treatise.334

He could not be sure whence this treatise came, he said, whether it was from Hamburg or Erfurt, and so he could not give further assistance to authorities as an informant (and neither could

Atterodt).335 His excuses were plausible. Roaming bandits often disturbed trading routes, Endter observed, which forced some distributors to abandon their wares and meant that their recovery was sometimes left to people, like Endter, who were ignorant of their contents.336 His ignorance was compounded by an another unfortunate oversight: The distributors who brought him the packet of exemplars did not include the customary letter identifying the original sender, meaning that Endter had no notion of their origins.337 Because the Leipzig book fair had been cancelled in the spring, thus depriving him of an important occasion for information gathering among his fellow bookmen,

Endter was unable to make further inquiries about who had sent these items and could be no help to imperial authorities as an informant.338 While this set of circumstances potentially explained how he came into possession of a treatise he had not himself produced, it did not explain why he sent them to Regensburg to be sold and distributed. This too, he claimed, was an innocent miscalculation on his part. The treatise’s duplicity had simply fooled him. Believing that it had

334 05 July 1641, Wolfgang Endter to Emperor Ferdinand III, fol. 109r. “…alß vor etlich Monathen mihr von Hamburg, Bremen, unnd Erfurth etliche ballen von büchern neben einen absonderlichen packetlein zugesand…da ich dan bey eröffnung deß erst berührten packetlein 200 exemplaria von angezogenen tractätlein befunden…”

335 Ibid. “…welche ob sie von Erfurth oder Hamburg mihr zukommen, ich noch nur Zeit darumb hiervon keine wissenshaft haben können…”

336 Ibid.

337 Ibid.

338 Ibid.

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come from the pen of a famous Jesuit theologian, he assumed nothing offensive or threatening was in the work.339

Atterodt and Endter applied counter pressure against imperial authorities by calling attention, sometimes subtly and sometimes insistently, to jurisdictional difficulties related to the closing of the shop. Atterodt recalled that he was under someone else’s jurisdiction and protection, and suggested the additional involvement of Nuremberg’s magistracy, whose citizen(s) the imperial government held in suspicion in Regensburg.340 Endter asserted, with greater dexterity, that to accuse him of printing the item would mean accusing the magistracy of Nuremberg of malfeasance.

“I swear to almighty God that I did not print such a thing,” Endter opined, “since in Nuremberg to print such a notorious form without permission is strictly forbidden, especially where the book printer vouches [for his work] with a serious oath.”341 For its part, Regensburg’s city council was clearly nonplussed about imperial officials’ unilateral closing of Atterodt’s shop. The council had no idea why, they observed, Atterodt’s bookshop was closed in the first place, since the emperor gave no indication of his plans to the city magistrates.342 They pointedly remarked that, even though

Regensburg was an imperial city, the emperor could not circumvent the magistracy’s jurisdiction.

According to the council, the emperor had ratified an agreement in 1614, hitherto observed without incident, which gave the city jurisdiction over all residents who paid their weekly “protection

339 Ibid., 109v.

340 23 June 1641, Johann Atterodt to Emperor Ferdinand III, fol. 104r; 104v-105r.

341 05 July 1641, Wolfgang Endter to Emperor Ferdinand III, fols. 109v. “Massen ich dann mit dem allermächtigen Gott bezeugen kan, daß ich solches nicht gedrucket, wird auch notorischem stylo nach in Nürnberg ohne sonderbahre censur daß geringste in druck außzufertigen nicht Verstattet, sondern deßwegen die buchdrucker mit einem schweren ayd beleget…”

342 23 June 1641, Court and Council of Regensburg to Emperor Ferdinand III, HHStA RHR BKR2, konv. 4, fols. 103 and 106; here fol. 103r. “Ob nun wol Wir nicht wissen, warumb solchen Buchladen gesperrt, und danhero E. Kay. May. Die geringste maß nicht zugeben haben.”

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money” (sein schuzgelt wochentlich bezalt), as apparently Atterodt had faithfully done.343 They were therefore obliged not only to remind the emperor of this fact, but also to advocate for the restoration of Atterodt’s shop, as he had requested.344

The temporary suspension of Atterodt / Endter’s trade in Regensburg seems to have been the only adverse outcome of the ordeal. It is impossible to tell from the records at what cost the store’s closure had come. More certain, however, is that it had cost something, and would cost much more if the closure extended indefinitely or became permanent. Atterodt’s insistence on the immediate reopening of the store and the restoration of its wares was evidence of its importance to him. He appeared to buckle with some ease under the pressure. As was the case with Zeämann’s arrest, authorities did not identify the blocking of Atterodt’s activities – the “arrest” of the store and its contents – as a punishment. Rather, it was a necessary step for conducting an official investigation. Imperial investigators said as much in their final version of events: They kept the store closed until Atterodt and Endter divulged all they knew about the treatise, assisting authorities with the identity and location of the author.345 Although Atterodt proved unhelpful in tracking the

343 Ibid., fols. 103r-103v. “Jedoch und weilen besagter Laden Diener, Vermög deß in Anno 1614 zwischen den Hernn Reichs Marschalln, und den Erb Frey und Reichsstätten auffgerichten: von E. Kays May ratificirten, und bißhero observirten Vertrags, unter Unsern schuz und jurisdiction begriffen, und sein schuzgelt Wochentlich bezalt, haben Wir seinen begern, nicht auß handen gehen können.”

344 Ibid., 103r. “Auß beigelegtem supplicirn wollen E Kays May allergnedigst ersehen, welcher gestalt bey unß Johann Atterodt, Wolffgang Endtners Buchführers zu Nürnberg, hiesiger Buchladens Diener, supplicando einkommen und gebetten, Ihme intercessionales zuerteilen, und darinn vorzubitten, das er seinen gesperrten Buchladen wider eröffnen, und forthin die vorhandene Bücher verschliessen dörffen möchte, Mit dem allerunderthenigsten erbotten, das er keinen fueß von dannen setzen wolle, biß er dessen allergnedigste verwilligung erlangen wurde.”

345 Ibid., fols. 107r-107v. “Darob, alß Er sich etwaß entsetzt unnd auff unsere ernstliche Verwarnung seiner darauff sehender, vorgeben daß Er zwar ungefehrlich bey 40 Exemplarien verkaufft haben möcht, keines aber seins wissens mehr in handen hett, Wir aber unß damit, unnd mit seinem zum schein beschehenen auffsuchen und nachschlagen mit abthädigen lassen köndten, hat unß für rathsamb und guett angesehen, Ihme den buchladen unnd offenen fail kauff so lang zusperren unnd verschlossen zuhalten, biß Er den Autorem unnd den ortt des truckhs würdt namhafft machen, und / alle alhie unnd zu Nürmberg noch übrige verhandene Exemplaria, in Unsern Gewalt gelieffert haben, wie dann die sperr alsbaldt darauff von unns beschehen, unnd biß dato noch uneröffnet blieben.”

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treatise’s true author and place of publication, he nevertheless disclosed what little he knew of the treatise straightaway as a means for assuaging imperial officials. His readiness implied that the burden of the shop’s closure weighed on him. The strain also incentivized the cooperation of

Endter, who sent an explanation of his role in the treatise’s presence in Regensburg within a week of imperial action against his satellite store.

In its most obvious manifestation, then, “resignation of the trade” under imperial oversight amounted to a temporary restriction on production and distribution. Like arrest and imprisonment, the forced cessation of trade activities was not necessarily meted out as punishment. Instead, it was more commonly a prelude to an official investigation, and represented a valuable tool for squeezing bookmen for information and inducing their cooperation – sometimes long-term, as potentially happened with Theodosius Rihel. Thus, if the legal prohibition of trade activities, termed

“Niederlegung” or “resignation,” is interpreted with regard to how it was typically practiced, it comes closer to a “suspension” than it does to permanent nonparticipation in the trade. As far as imperial records indicate, no person involved with the imperial book trade was compelled, as a penalty for wrongdoing, to resign his trade altogether.

Tracing Outcomes

Outcomes, taken here to mean discernible changes in behavior, are fair barometers of the effectiveness of punishment strategies. If punitive measures did not change behavior, then their effectiveness is doubtful. Suspension of the trade carried the greatest long-term threat to financial and professional viability. The records permit an expanded understanding of “Niederlegung ihres

Handwerks” that captures how it was employed as a punishment, rather than a way to pressure bookmen into cooperating with investigations. The resolution of libel cases tended to include a provision prohibiting accused parties from involvement with a specific work, an entire category of 175

works, or both. In the Regensburg case, a condition of imperial forbearance (i.e. refraining from handing down a severe punishment) was Endter’s agreement to avoid contact with the offensive treatise itself, but also with all anonymous and pseudonymous materials.346 On the surface, this seems a toothless demand. The provision required Endter (and presumably his attendant, Atterodt also) to pledge faithfulness to imperial censorship laws in the future, which had outlawed anonymous and pseudonymous works as handmaidens to libel. Bearing in mind previous discussions of the important rhetorical function pseudonymity played in controversialist discourse and polemical exchanges between intellectuals, the provision could have sufficed to make Endter think twice about his trade in those types of books lest he lose an important share of the academic book market altogether.

The decision against printing and selling a book is not typically open to the scrutiny of historians, making it difficult to gauge the effects, if any, of censorial injunctions of this kind. This is especially true in the case of robust printing houses, such as Endter’s firm in Nuremberg, for which the trade in disputational or polemical works formed part of a much larger inventory. Endter’s business boomed despite the obstacles of the Thirty Years’ War. Endter’s Nuremberg firm surpassed his Wittenberg and Leipzig competitors, becoming a central pillar for Lutheran devotional literature. In 1641, the same year his ordeal in Regensburg unfolded, Endter obtained the print privilege from Duke Ernst the Pious for the so-called Elector Bible, which became a staple edition

346 05 July 1641, Pappenheim and Hildebrand to Emperor Ferdinand III, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 107- 108 and 111-112; here fols. 108v-111r. “…so weren Wir der unvergreifflichen gehorsambisten mainung, E. Kayl. Mayl. möchten zwar dem Endter die sperr wider eröffnen, beneben aber, bey Vermeidung ernstlicher unaußbleiblicher straff, aufferlegen lassen, daß Er hieführo dergleiche Tractat unnd Büecher, welche kein gewissen ortt, Statt unnd Nahmen haben, oder under eines anderm nahmen außgehen, nit mehr zuverkauffen annehmen, noch dieselbe heimb: oder offentlich verkauffen, auch waß Er hieführo zum fail kaufft für büecher anhero / bringen lassen möcht…”

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of the Bible for Lutherans in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.347 A review of Endter’s records on the VD17 bears out the image of his firm as a pillar of the Lutheran book trade, with many examples of sermon collections, catechetical materials, and so-called “occasional writings”

(Gelegenheitsschriften) for ceremonial events such as weddings and funerals. He also produced works in a variety of genres such as medicine, mathematics, history, genealogy, chemistry, dictionaries, calendars and many more. Not all of his overtly religious treatises were benign, inoffensive devotional works, but included religious invectives targeting Lutheranism’s confessional rivals.

What changes or alterations, if any, are discernible in his production following his run-in with imperial authorities? There are no additional editions of the contested treatise, so imperial censorship seemed to convince him to abandon it. How well did Endter regulate, or suspend, his own activities vis-à-vis potentially punishable works, such as religious polemics and invective-laced disputations? If we hunt through the generic classifications of the VD17 for works branded

“polemics” (Streitschriften), there are few after 1641. In fairness, the limited view afforded by the

VD17 suggests that polemics was always a comparatively small corner of his production, yet it shows that his rate of production in polemics nevertheless slowed between 1642 and his death in

1659. It is difficult to augur from the records of the VD17, or from the imperial archival documents housed in Vienna, whether or to what extent imperial censorship altered his behavior. On the one hand, the VD17 traces printing and publication. Endter was also a bookseller. Fair catalogs would assist in identifying the wares he took to sell, but would still be subject to similar difficulties in drawing conclusive meaning from them. On the other hand, the imperial response to his case in

1641 did not prohibit him explicitly from confessional polemics per se, but rather urged him to

347 Christoph Petzsch, “Wolfgang Endter,” in Neue Deutsche Biographie 4 (1959): 498, accessed 05 November 2014, http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd122177649.html.

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follow the law against libelous and quasi-libelous books. The ambiguity of libel, as such, makes tracing the effectiveness of its punishment as a control mechanism against its production, distribution, and sale incredibly hard. Recall that libel was a trans-generic legal category, that could include polemics and anonymous or pseudonymous works, but also extended to all manner of other types of genres, including histories (de Thou and Sleidan-Beuther), genealogies (Albizzi), and sermons (Zeämann).

Printers and booksellers were not the only members of the book market punished with a suspension or resignation of all or part of their trade activities. Imperial authorities demanded that authors, too, refrain from practicing their “trades” with regard to certain kinds of literature.

Although those accused of libel were, unsurprisingly, urged to stop writing libels in the future, the sense of “libel” in these injunctions tended to correspond to the types of writings that these authors had composed as the basis for their libels. The majority of libel cases that made it through some part of the imperial judicial process involved religious writings of one variety or another. Thus, the resolutions of their cases tended to obligate these authors to refrain from having their religious writings printed or otherwise circulated. This was theoretically true for all of the authors whose cases came before the imperial court. They were trained theologians whose writings about religion represented a significant aspect of their professional activities, even though they did not depend on their literary activities to earn a living. Did brushes with imperial disfavor change the behavior of these authors? As was the case with printers and booksellers, there is no easy answer to this question, not least because the decision not to write is not usually open to the scrutiny of historians.

The resulting conclusions are therefore speculative.

Theodor Thumm’s ordeal did not blunt his cutting edge. He returned to his position at the

University in Tübingen and participated in at least two published theological disputations in 1629, one of which, Theological Disputation on the Invocation of the Saints in which the Particular Sophisms of the 178

Jesuits are Revealed and Solidly Refuted from the Word of God, was manifestly polemical.348 This can, however, also be explained by the fact that overseeing and participating in disputations was an important part of his duties as a professor. He could not cease his involvement with disputations without giving up his post as professor of theology. Nor could anyone else, including Thumm’s

Jesuit opponents at Dillingen and Ingolstadt, who were also deeply involved in disputational activities at their respective universities. Thumm died in 1630, however, leaving his post- incarceration body of work too small to gauge fully. Thumm’s trial did little to dull the initial enthusiasm of his contemporaries for his provocative work, namely the Well-Founded Christian Report, which was reprinted twice in 1629 without providing the name of the printer or the place of publication in either instance.349 However, interest in Thumm’s work waned subsequent to his death. His work was reprinted only four more times, in 1650, 1664, 1667, and 1668. One of those works, the final one printed in the seventeenth century, was a minor work to which imperial officials had paid little attention during his trial and would not attract much attention if reprinted at a safe distance. None of his most bitterly contested works were reprinted in the seventeenth-century after

1629, a strong indication that printers had lost their nerve or Thumm had simply lost his relevance

(or both; the former could certainly contribute to the latter).

Georg Zeämann lived for another eight years after his release from prison. Of the individuals who suffered imperial scrutiny and punishment for producing libels, the ordeal made the biggest impact on the course of Zeämann’s life and career. His subsequent works, which were comparatively numerous, shied away from the kinds of religious invective for which he was troubled by imperial authorities. The post-imprisonment texts appear largely innocuous on initial inspection.

348 Theodor Thumm and Johannes Leonhard, Disputatio Theologica De Sanctorum Invocatione in qua, Praecipua Jesuitarum Sophismata ex verbo Dei deterguntur, & solide refutantur (Tübingen: Dietrich Werlin, 1629). VD17 32:689070F.

349 VD17 1:076884G and 3:322039S. 179

In the main, they were devotional works – sermons and prayer books – befitting the office of a

Lutheran pastor and superintendent. Of course, appearances can be deceptive, as evidenced by the fact that the New Mirror of Miracles was ostensibly also a work befitting a Lutheran pastor. A handful of his post-incarceration books were politicized and arguably more scurrilous than his previous works considering the context, coming closer to the brazen contumacy for which Thumm was the primary culprit and to which Zeämann was something of a second fiddle. Several of these works were dedicated to important persons in Swedish politics: Axel Oxenstierna, King Gustavus

Adolphus, and Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg. This made sense, considering that after his release from Ehrenberg, Zeämann and his family moved to Stralsund in Swedish-occupied Germany, where he was called to serve as superintendent and pastor at St. Nicholas church. Zeämann had dedicated these works to these leaders at just the time when the outcome of the war had augured well for

Sweden. It would not have been hard to accuse Zeämann of sedition, had imperial authorities had the wherewithal to reach him again.

It is tempting to interpret Zeämann’s move to Stralsund as a kind of exile from his former home in Kempten, although there is no indication Kempten’s magistrates had driven him away or that imperial authorities had stipulated his departure as a term of his release. Evidence suggests that

Zeämann was welcomed to Stralsund with open arms. He had not been pushed out of Kempten so much as he was pulled to Stralsund, where imperial intervention into his activities was unlikely so long as he courted the patronage of Swedish grandees. In fact, his ordeal had conferred a degree of celebrity on Zeämann. His imprisonment became an important part of the esteem in which people held him and influenced how others thought about his legacy as a servant of Lutheranism, judging 180

from the remembrances recorded in his funeral sermon in 1638.350 It is hard to resist reading

Zeämann’s memorial sermon in the light of his ordeal, as a panegyric to his polemical battles with the Jesuits and his moral victory over the tribulations his nettled Jesuit opponents had instigated.

Philipp Heinrich Friedlieb, who delivered the sermon, lamented that Zeämann’s death had deprived the “Apostolic Lutheran Church” of a “light and pillar…who could powerfully answer back its adversaries.”351 The New and Old Testaments, Friedlieb opined, had many names for clergymen like

Zeämann, not least among them “knights and warriors,” who fight the good fight, keeping their faith and good conscience intact against others who have rejected and suffered shipwreck in their faith.352 The sermon’s biblical text, Psalm 126, concerned the Babylonian Captivity, the suffering of the pious while the godless appear free from such suffering. Later, when pontificating on

Zeämann’s life and career, Friedlieb addressed the embittered Jesuits and their “satanic machinations” to have Zeämann arrested.353 The survey of his travails passed over his time of imprisonment, an astonishing sixty-two weeks, during which time he maintained his innocence and rallied the support of respectable persons because of his constancy in the face of adversity.354 In the end, Zeämann was a faithful servant of the Lutheran church, as evidenced most prominently by his suffering on behalf of the true faith against those whose own ships of faith had foundered. In that regard, the purpose of punishing him may have gone unfulfilled, as it seemed to have the opposite

350 Philipp Heinrich Friedlieb, Dulce Amarum Christianorum: Wunderwechsel Oder Christliche LeichSermon Bey ansehenlicher Leichbegängnuß / Des Weyland WolEhrwürdigen / Groß Achtbarn und Hochgelahrten Herrn Georgii Zeaemanni, der H. Schrifft weitberühmten Doctoris, wolverordneten gewesenen Superintendentis zum Stralsund / der Hauptstadt in Pommern / und Professoris in dem Gymnasio daselbsten / etc. (Rostock: Michael Meder, 1638).

351 Ibid., 4.

352 Ibid., 15.

353 Ibid., 56.

354 Ibid. 181

effect on Zeämann’s co-religionists. That is, rather than tarnishing his reputation as a libeler, his ordeal burnished his hallow as a saintly martyr for Lutheranism against the scourge of the Counter-

Reformation.

***

The most judicious conclusion about punishments is that, between imperial authorities and the various bookmen they encountered and prosecuted, there were no clear winners or losers. On the one hand, imperial authorities seldom got exactly what they wanted. On the other hand, none of the accused libelers, or abettors of libel, escaped their encounters with imperial authorities unscathed. Thumm paid a fine and served a six-month term of imprisonment. Zeämann endured more than a year of imprisonment before exiling himself and his family to the northern reaches of the Swedish-controlled Empire. Endter’s shop was closed and, undoubtedly, some portion of his

(or Atterodt’s) income was lost. These outcomes were not nearly so striking as executions, mutilations, or bonfires of books. It remains impossible to generalize whether they were more or less effective forms of control and deterrence than the public and severe forms of bodily and material punishments, although the historiography suggests that these measures were less effective than desired by the authorities who employed them. This indicates that the effectiveness of censorial penalties was measurable less by asking what kinds of punishments authorities employed, how severe they were, or how frequently these they were meted out, than by the longer histories of contested books, their authors, and their producers.

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Chapter Five The Administration and Enforcement of Imperial Censorship

In addition to the volume of libel proscriptions in imperial censorship legislation, a mark of libel’s significance was its correlative relationship with increasingly expansive and demanding censorship policies. As this chapter explains, the extension of official supervision over the Empire’s book trade accompanied libel proscription early and often, influencing what and how items were printed and sold. The term “correlative” is preferable because, as examined above, libel was ostensibly the only category of illegal expression that was content-based. As far as imperial law was concerned, especially after 1555, when authorities barred production of certain books or confiscated others, they did so because they were libelous. The addition of other requirements was certainly designed to ensure compliance and prevent the spread of libelous books; hence, the two phenomena

– the criminalization of books as libelous and the expansion of censorship controls – were intimately related. Nevertheless, libelousness did not determine illegality in every instance. The new regulations had an additive effect, illegalizing categories of books for reasons other than content and hence for reasons only indirectly (if at all) related to fears of libel. Books that failed to meet the new legal standards were by definition illegal and subject to confiscation and suppression regardless of whether or not they were libelous, strictly speaking.

Pre-Publication Censorship

Pre-publication censorship – the expectation that local authorities would review and approve all printed materials before they went to press – became a firm requirement. Pre-publication censorship pre-dated the Edict of Worms. In fact, what is here described as “pre-publication censorship” is sometimes taken as an equivalent to “censorship,” while what will be referred to below as “post-publication censorship” is treated slightly differently, termed “book policing” rather 183

than “book censorship” per se.355 This perspective is intriguing for a number of reasons. Although I prefer the distinction pre- and post-publication censorship because it draws greater attention to the fact that they were both crucially constitutive of “censorship” as a process of official review, which could take place either before or after a book went to print. Admittedly, authorities placed more emphasis on pre-publication review, as the agents and institutions of post-publication censorship – i.e. the establishment of book police – emerged comparatively slowly and piecemeal.

In general, authorites expected that religious texts would undergo review by the nearest university theological faculty and secular officials would inspect non-religious texts prior to distribution.356 But the Empire’s tendency toward particularism encouraged a corresponding plurality of practices, meaning that, even though pre-publication review was common before the

Reformation, it was not incumbent upon local authorities as a provision of imperial law. The imperial recess for Speyer (1529) installed pre-publication review as an official provision of imperial censorship law, which, as it happened, also stated the imperial prohibition of libel as it appeared in imperial recesses for the remainder of the sixteenth century. Speyer commanded that nothing new

(whatsoever) – but “especially not libelous writings and the like” – should be printed, distributed, or sold “without prior inspection by selected and sensible persons, so that when deficiencies are found in those items they are not authorized for printing or for sale and are strictly forbidden.”357 The suppression of dangerous books demanded better control over the production and transmission of ideas than post-publication review alone provided. By the time authorities discovered a scurrilous book or pamphlet, it had likely circulated through many hands already. More had to be done to

355 Darnton, Censors at Work.

356 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 50.

357 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1530), §9. 184

prevent such materials from reaching the market in the first place. Pre-publication review presented authorities with an opportunity to suppress unwanted items (libels for example) before bookmen produced and distributed them. Books and other printings, whether they were technically construed as libelous or not, were de facto and de jure illegal if they did not possess official approbation.

The institutionalization of pre-publication review represented the initial step in a more concerted effort to increase accountability (as an avenue to obedience). The logic is easy to see.

The requirement that designated officials review texts prior to their production would theoretically give pause to nefariously minded authors, printers, and publishers. If all went according to plan, the fear of discovery and punishment dissuaded bookmen from trying their hand at illegal books or pamphlets in the first place. Even if they forged ahead without prior review, fraudulent texts would ideally be undone by their lack of approbation and confiscated anyway. In effect, the weaker-willed would founder on their worries. There was a spectrum of types among them, but in general, bookmen erred on the side of caution. The threat of lost inventory, fines, or the resignation of the trade could be enough to dissuade certain bookmen (but hardly all of them) from risky ventures.

The goal of these measures – arguably the goal of all censorship, whether premodern, early modern, or modern – was the encouragement of self-censorship.

Duplicity among the Empire’s more cunning, recalcitrant, or desperate bookmen was not forestalled by pre-publication censorship. Imperial law demanded all materials receive prior review but remained characteristically unconcerned with specifics, like how bookmen would demonstrate prior review. Imperial law did not require officials to adopt a common device for showing that pre- publication censorship had actually happened and that they had actually approved a given book. It was possible, in other words, for printers, publishers, or booksellers to claim approval they did not seek or did not obtain. Imperial censorship law recognized the need to rectify the situation almost immediately. The burdens of accountability had to be multiplied with targeted requirements. In the 185

first place, imperial law required every book to signal its provenance on the title page, including the name of the author, the name of the printer, and the place of publication. This happened not long after the institutionalization of pre-publication censorship, at the following imperial diet at Augsburg in 1530.358 Again, it had been in practice for a long time previously, but had apparently not featured as a requirement of the law. Such measures permitted authorities to trace illegal materials to their points of origin where, in theory at least, persons responsible could be punished for them. As we shall see, stumbling blocks littered the road to enforcement in this regard. Imperial authorities experienced first-hand, on several occasions, that holding to account the subjects of princes or magistrates fiercely protective of their jurisdictional prerogatives was never simple. In any event, a book lacking these identifiers was banned, ostensibly warranted by the book’s form rather than its content.

Strategies for Enforceable Accountability

Although content and form could be evaluated independently of one another, they were not mutually exclusive. If we consider the demand for identifying information in the context of the history of libel, it is possible to gain a more nuanced understanding of the implicit purposes (i.e. increased accountability) working in the background of these kinds of censorship measures. In this case, requiring identifying information – name of the author, name of printer, place of publication – was equivalent to a ban on anonymous and pseudonymous writings.359 Historically, as we discussed

358 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1530), §58.

359 The requirement that identifying information be found on the title pages of books was not unique to the Empire, and became standard practice as a means of control and regulation throughout Europe. In the Empire, the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 formalized the practice of including identifying information, while in France the edict of Châeaubriand of 1551 did the same as a supplement to the requirements already handed down by the Sorbonne for identifying and classifying “reprobate books.” The somewhat later formal adoption of these requirements in sixteenth-century France 186

in the Chapter Three above, proscriptions against unidentified texts were associated with bans on libels. Under Roman law, libels and anonymous texts were functional equivalents, inasmuch as anonymity (i.e. the form) was assumed indicative of libel. Anonymity retained its associations with scurrilous pamphlets and booklets into the early modern age. The Constitutio Criminalis Carolina’s brief treatment of libels identified them, in part, by their tendency toward obfuscating their source.

Imperial law, like Roman law, operated on the assumption that, by instituting these requirements, form would signal content. It was safe to accept that, in the majority of cases, the creator of an anonymous text knew, understood, and was advertising that the text contained illegal, scandalous content. There was another consideration, not as well defined in imperial law as it was in Roman law but present in imperial censorship proceedings nevertheless. The chief advantage anonymity and pseudonymity carried for the creators of illegal texts was simultaneously the greatest threat such texts posed to their possessors. While responsibility for creating such a text was not easy for premodern authorities to trace or prove, it was also difficult for people caught with such a text to deny responsibility. There was thus a disincentive to possess an anonymous text, institutionalized under

Roman law. The Codex (book 9, title 36) demanded the immediate destruction of discovered libels regardless of who discovered them or where, meaning that ordinary citizens were obligated to take action as well as officials.360 Roman law not only made demands but also spelled out the

may be a result of the fact that church and civil officials worked together to eliminate heretical books, in a manner more cooperative than possible in the Empire. Because France had recourse to indexes of prohibited books, in other words, the need for an official declaration on this topic by the French crown was obviated initially. Also, the threat to France represented by the Huguenots and Reformed publications originating from Geneva, which menaced French Catholicism more robustly than German Lutheranism did, came later. For the persecution of heresy and the censorship of heretical writings in France, see Raymond A. Mentzer, “The Legal Response to Heresy in Languedoc, 1500-1560,” in The Sixteenth Century Journal 4 (1973): 19-30; here 27. For more on the French ability to successfully counter Luther in the early Reformation, and France’s book market more generally, see Andrew Pettegree and Matthew Hall, “The Reformation and the Book: A Reconsideration,” in The Historical Journal 47 (2004): 785-808; here 800-807.

360 Debora Shuger, Censorship and Cultural Sensibility, 93. As the title indicates, Shuger’s book is about censorship in early modern England, and much of her discussion in the cited chapter is about the emergence and legal interpretation of 187

consequences: If the discoverer shares the libel or its contents with anyone, he (or she) would be regarded as its author and would be subject to capital punishment.361 Imperial law made no similar threats, at least not explicitly, but tradition and common sense combined to make possession of anonymous libels hazardous.

Another method of increasing accountability involved increasing accessibility; namely, taking steps to ensure that appointed officials could swiftly and easily search local print shops. The recess for Speyer (1570) was the first to establish legislation to this effect. It stated that, in an effort to

“bring to an end and everywhere suppress the impudent and brazen impertinence” of libelous materials, “henceforth throughout the Empire, printing shops should be permitted in no other places than in the cities where electors and princes ordinarily hold court, where universities are maintained, or in sizeable imperial cities.”362 “Otherwise,” the recess continued, “all secret printing shops should be abolished.”363 The effectiveness of this provision was questionable in light of the fact that satellite-printing centers emerged on the fringes of mainstream ones, seemingly as ways to circumvent unfavorable official oversight. But, it must be said, these known satellites usually fit the stipulations of imperial law, which seemed to have an effect on how print businesses operated.364

Roman libel law (specifically seditious libel) in England’s Star Chamber. Nevertheless, her analysis of libel in Roman law, as well as her inclusion of contemporary, influential Continental jurists’ perspectives, is both excellent and relevant to libel in the laws of the Holy Roman Empire, as I hope to show.

361 Ibid.

362 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §155. “Dieweil dann solche vermessene ungescheute Frechheit des lästerlichen Druckens, Mahlens und Schmähens, umb so viel mehr zu coerciren, und allenthalben abzustellen.”

363 Ibid. “Darauff setzen, ordnen und wollen Wir, dass hinfüro im gantzen Römischen Reich Buchdruckereien an keine andere Oerter, denn in denen Städten, da Churfürsten und Fürsten ihr gewöhnliche Hoffhaltung haben, oder da Universitates studiorum gehalten, oder in ansehenlichen Reichstädten verstattet, aber sonsten alle Winkel-Druckereyen stracks abgeschafft werden sollen.” It was repeated in the New Police Ordinance in 1577. Reformirte und Gebesserte Polizei- Ordnung (1577), article XXXV, §6.

364 For example, Stephen G. Burnett mentioned the effect of this legislation on Jewish and Hebrew printing in the period. See Burnett’s “The Regulation of Hebrew Printing in Germany, 1555-1630: Confessional Politics and the Limits 188

Imperial law did not define procedures for pre-publication review. It left unspecified whether bookmen brought their pending books to local officials, or whether local officials visited printing shops. A general picture of practices throughout the Empire involved a combination of both official visitations and voluntary self-reporting, undoubtedly, but because imperial law did not regularize these practices, a great deal depended on contexts and conditions. Shop visitations, especially if unexpected, could turn up undesirable works because the printing process was so sprawling that concealing illicit works was difficult, if not impossible.

In order to ensure that bookmen had been duly informed of their obligations under imperial law, the later recesses also required they swear an oath. The diet at Speyer (1570) asserted that “no printer should be licensed who does not first and foremost swear with a solemn oath to his authority, in the place where he resides, that he knows he should behave honestly, respectably, and in all things appropriately and that in his printings he must comply with this and other imperial recesses.”365 The New Police Ordinance of 1577, moreover, stated that each printer “shall swear an oath that in all his printings he shall observe both current and future imperial recesses and abstain

of Jewish Toleration,” in Infinite Boundaries: Order, Disorder, and Reorder in Early Modern German Culture, eds. Max Reinhart and Thomas Robisheaux (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1998): 329-348. Burnett points out that, in considering the legality of permitting Jewish printing, authorities took locations of Jewish presses into account in light of residency rules for printers. Two presses were technically permissable, those in Basel and Hanau, since they were in university towns. A third, however, in Thannhausen did not meet the criteria, and authorities arrested the operators of the press, two Jews and two non-Jews, closed the press, and seized the books (334-335). It is an interesting question, and one I would like to explore in more detail in a more developed project, how Jewish works fit into the world of censorship shaped by confessional considerations and framed by considerations of libel and calumny. While both Protestant and Catholic authorities could freely ban Jewish printing for purely religious reasons, as the Religious Peace did not protect Jews, it was still common for antagonistic onlookers to label Jewish works calumnious or defamatory. In fact, such accusations were important for rhetorical justifications for banning the Talmud, except under stringent censorship. Froben could only produce the Talmud from Basel, as Burnett notes, if he declined to identify it as the “Talmud” on its title page (as per the conditions of the Tridentine Index) and, more strikingly, if he arranged to have both Protestant and Catholic censors approve his project in advance (see Burnett, 337-339).

365 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §156. “Zum anderen soll auch kein Buchdrucker zugelassen warden, der nicht zuforderst von seiner Obrigkeit, da er häusslich sizet, darzu redlich, ehrbar und aller Ding tuglich erkennt, auch daselbst mit sonderm leiblichen Eyd beladen, in seinem Trucken jetzigen und andern Reichsabschieden, sich gemäss verhalten.”

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entirely from all blasphemous and defamatory books, images, and verses.”366 Oath swearing supplied an additional incentive for obedience, for transgressors of imperial censorship laws would be oath-breakers as well as criminals.

Imperial Print Privileges

Yet these requirements did not assure the cooperation and honesty of bookmen in every instance, since it was burdensome and time-consuming to submit one’s potential publications to review. Imperial authorities threatened and hectored bookmen with legislation, but in the absence of resources and policing agents, authorities were partially reliant on the self-compliance and self- regulation of the bookmen themselves. Their cooperation required the stick and the carrot.

Government officials were in a unique position to provide the protection and mediation that printers, publishers, and booksellers needed. Printing was not as internally organized as other trades.

Because printing came relatively late, it was not fully integrated into pre-existing guild systems, meaning that much regulation and enforcement came from outside the trade itself. Generally, trade associations promoted and protected the trade’s credibility by regulating membership, setting prices, instituting quality controls, and punishing wayward members. In many places, the print trade only slowly (if at all) developed the structures necessary for internal oversight of benchmarks and safeguards. State authorities, however, were well placed and sufficiently motivated to meet those demands where mechanisms for internal oversight were absent. Urban censors, for instance, did

366 Reformirte und Gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), article XXXV, §6. “…auch daselbst mit sonderlichem leiblichem Eyd beladen ist, in seinem Trucken sich obberührten jetzigen und künfftigen Reichsabschieden gemäss, zu erzeigen und sich aller lästerlichen und schmählichen Bücher, Gemählds und Gedict, gäntzlich zu erhalten.”

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more than review books; they were responsible for setting commercial standards and interceding in disputes between squabbling printers.367 Censorship and book regulation went hand in hand.368

The marriage between state control and the print trade’s desire for regulation was not always a happy one. Authorities still needed to incentivize the print trade’s observance of censorship laws, particularly with regard to pre-publication censorship. Bookmen could be counted on to engage in selective non-compliance: They tended to embrace or ignore censorship provisions when it suited them. Even with added measures – identifying information, oath swearing, banning of secret presses, and visitations – pre-publication censorship was easy, and sometimes convenient, to flout.

Selective non-compliance was a matter of weighing benefits against disadvantages, rather than a sign of utter disregard for the law. For instance, the review process might take too long and squander a market advantage.369 The chance of being caught was typically rather low. Printers knew that “they would only get into trouble if a text they had printed subsequently caused a scandal.”370 In certain instances, the decision to skip pre-publication censorship was not only low risk but also high reward.

Censorship authorities needed to shift the balance toward compliance.

A significant incentive came from print privileges, which provided the kind of market protection that bookmen wanted. Privileges were among the first mechanisms for organizing and regulating the nascent print industry. They granted exclusive rights to privilege-holder(s) to print, publish, or sell a particular work (or set of works) for a predetermined length of time, usually a

367 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 34.

368 Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press), Kindle edition, chapter 4.

369 Ibid. See also Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 34-35.

370 Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance, chapter 10.

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number of years. Re-printing (nachdrucken) privileged works without the permission of the privilege- holder was criminalized as piracy. This was a key arrangement for stabilizing the trade and ensuring its diffusion. If a select handful of early printers had been granted exclusive permission to print in certain cities or territories, as one historian has argued, then printing would have remained a trade secret and probably would not have blossomed into a fully-fledged industry with a Europe-wide market.371 In the Empire, privileges were not required by imperial law. Instead, they operated on a quid-pro-quo basis. In the case of imperial print privileges, applicants submitted their works to authorities for official pre-publication review and then provided free exemplars to the imperial chancery. In exchange, they received official protection of their right to produce and distribute a given title during the allotted time. When someone was caught pirating privileged books, the punishment involved a fine, a portion of which went to the aggrieved privilege-holder and the remainder to the imperial government (the privilege granter).

In the Empire, as in Europe more broadly, privileges were binding only within the jurisdictions of the issuing authority. The work of a printer, who had been granted a print privilege in electoral Saxony, was not protected in Bavaria and could be reprinted without serious consequence. The appeal of an imperial print privilege was in the range of its protection: Such a privilege was legally binding throughout the Empire, in theory at least. Yet the usual problem persisted; namely, the effectiveness of print privileges was dependent on the cooperative self- regulation of the book industry. Although these privileges differed from place to place and time to time, what we know about censorship operations throughout the Empire suggests that they were short-staffed and the few official regulators tended to have other responsibilities besides

371 MacLean, Scholarship, Commence, Religion, 135.

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censorship.372 Thus, bookmen did their own oversight and counted on the cooperation of their peers and colleagues. The proximity of different jurisdictions meant that two different printers could apply to their local authorities for and procure a print privilege, enabling them to produce the same book. In turn, the book was probably destined for the same market(s), whether local, regional, or to a larger book fair such as Frankfurt’s or Leipzig’s, unless the printers struck a voluntary deal to avoid stepping on one another’s business. Volunteerism among bookmen thus extended to the enforcement of privileges. In order to work, printers, publishers, and sellers had to be willing to report violations to authorities. For the protection of their interests, members of the book trade would have to be willing to take up the mantle of enforcers and cooperate with censorship authorities in the regulation of their trade.

Although imperial authorities did not police the trade, it did not imply a lack of concern with the protection of privileges. Quite the opposite. Imperial authorities granted privileges for the same reasons bookmen applied for them: They gave something wanted by others and received something they wanted in return. Understanding and explaining what authorities received in exchange is complicated, since historians are left to determine motivations and intentions of official decisions from the consequences of those decisions. We know, in other words, what bookmen were offered

(protection), but the picture of what imperial authorities received is murkier. Authorities had financial and material interests in print privileges, as mentioned earlier. There was a cost associated with applying for a privilege, including the submission of free exemplars of the privileged work, and the imperial government received a share of fines leveled against pirates. How much these considerations motivated official interest in privileges is tough to gauge. It is unclear how much

372 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 34-35.

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money imperial authorities actually received from issuing print privileges or from collecting fines from privilege violations. Imperial authorities were certainly concerned with collecting exemplars.

Yet estimates for the number of collected exemplars are low, for a variety of reasons to be discussed below with an examination of the Imperial Book Commission. It therefore seems unlikely to me that imperial authorities became involved in print privileges for financial or material reasons, as the practice did not apparently yield much in either money or exemplars.

So, what can we say that authorities received in return for their protection? I believe the answer was access and accountability, the attainment of which, as we saw above, was a significant consideration in imperial censorship provisions. Issuing privileges allowed authorities to cultivate a cooperative relationship with members of the book trade, encouraging them to submit their products to pre-publication censorship. No matter what happened afterward regarding the collection of fines or the gathering of exemplars, all privileged books were obligated to have passed official review. Thus, imperial authorities had a tremendous success rate regarding the pre- publication censorship of imperially privileged books. Even if the number of imperially privileged books was not high (by all accounts it was not), at the beginning of the seventeenth century when the contours of the practice were still emerging, issuing print privileges was a remarkable strategy for fostering voluntary cooperation and guaranteeing official access to printed materials.

It is important to remember that, for privilege-holders and privilege-issuers alike, there was more at stake than finances; there were closely inter-related considerations of reputation, authority, and credibility. Certainly, reprints (as well as pirated editions) spoiled the market for originals. Yet for members of the book trade, apart from a loss of money, reprints and pirated editions threatened the reputation of individual crafts men and the craft as a whole. Reprints were under no strict obligation to adhere to higher standards of quality. There was perception that printers made reprints for cheaper sale, using poorer materials with minimal craftsmanship. If a reprint opted to keep the 194

identifying information of the title page, including the name of the original printer, then buyers potentially equated poor quality and the printer in whose name the text originally appeared.

Moreover, a reprinted or pirated edition might contain unintentional errors as well as deliberate corruptions of the text with potentially criminal consequences for the original producer. The protections provided by print privileges helped safeguard the reputations of printers. In exchange for pre-publication review, privileged books received an imprimatur, an indication that buyers could be reasonably certain that a given book was what it said it was, was printed by who it said it was, and was manufactured with quality standards in mind. In fact, privileged books were held to higher standards at the outset, since quality was a consideration during the privilege-granting process. In return for the legitimacy conveyed by their approval, authorities gained (limited) regulatory access to the book market.

Local Administration and Enforcement of Imperial Censorship Provisions

With each new censorial requirement, new burdens were not only placed on authors, printers, or booksellers, but also on the censors who regulated their activities. This has been discussed already in Chapter Four above, but deserves repeating in this context. It was highly relevant to the progress and development of censorship that imperial legislation was addressed to authorities rather than printers, publishers, or booksellers. The administration and enforcement of censorship legislation was the duty of the imperial estates, local authorities, and civic magistrates. If censorship legislation missed its mark, imperial authorities attributed the fault to them. Judging from the testimony of chagrined contemporaries, libelous writings were a serious problem and it seemed that widespread affection for scurrilous literature refused to wane. Lamentations about disobedience to previous interdictions occurred both before and after the Religious Peace, but became a feature of legislative preambles from the 1540s. The Police Ordinance issued at Augsburg 195

in 1548 observed that, although previous imperial recesses had insisted on the illegality of libelous materials, “It has nevertheless come to our attention that our laws are not obeyed, but rather that such libelous books, writings, publications, and productions are ever more written, printed, made, offered for sale, and distributed.”373 The language was henceforth standardized along these lines.

The recess for the diet at Speyer in 1570 offered perhaps the most dramatic reading of the situation, evoking a shelterless landscape upon which libels hounded all peoples and places:

Although at several previous imperial diets it was commanded under serious penalty that authorities should oversee their print shops and book merchants with earnestness, so that no libels or similar books (from which nothing but strife, revolt, distrust, and the severing of all peaceful nature) are publicly made, printed, sold, or otherwise distributed, it has nevertheless come to our attention that, in many places, our command is not heeded but is ignored such that from time to time all manner of shameless defamatory writings, books, pamphlets, and images are printed and published with impunity, are offered for sale, sold and distributed at the annual markets, fairs, and other gatherings. No one, whether a sovereign, lord, or subject is spared from them.374

The New Police Ordinance of 1577 repeated the Augsburg Police Ordinance’s comments with few changes.375 From the perspective of imperial authorities the alleged pervasiveness of libels, which

373 Ordnung und Reformation gutter Polizei (1548), article XXXIV, §1. “Wiewohl Wir auch auff hiebevor gehaltenen Reichstägen Uns mit Churfürsten, Fürsten und Ständen des H. Reichs und der Abwesenden Bottschafften vereinigt und verglichen, auch Satzung und Ordnung im Druck ausgehen, un verkünden lassen haben, dass in allen Druckereyen, auch bey allen Buchführern, mit ernstem Fleiss Fürsehung gethan, dass hinführo nichts Neues, und sonderlich Schmähschrifften, Gemählds oder dergleichen, weder öffentlich noch heimlich gedicht, gedruckt, noch feil gehabt werden sollen, wie denn dieselben Abschied ferner mitbringen: So befinden Wir doch, dass ob derselben Unser Satzung gar nichts gehalten, sondern dass solche schmähliche Bücher, Schrifften, Gemählds und Gemächts je länger, je mehr gedicht, gedruckt, gemacht, feil gehabt, und ausgebreitet werden.”

374 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Speyer (1570), §154. “Wiewohl auch auff etlichen vorigen gehaltenen Reichs-Tägen bei schweren Poenen statuirt und gebotten worden, dass die Obrigkeiten bei ihren Druckereyen, Buchführern und sonsten ernstliche Vorsehung thun sollen, damit keine Schmähbücher, oder dergl. (dadurch nichts gutes, sondern nur Zanck, Aufruhr, Misstrauen und Zertrennung alles friedlichen Wesens angestifft) offentlich oder Heimlich gemacht, gedruckt, verkauft, oder sonsten ausgehen: So kommen Wir doch in gewisse Erfahrung, dass solchem Unserm und des Heil. Reichs gebot an vielen Ortern nicht gelebt, sondern zugesehen warden will, das hin und wieder allerley schmalose Schmeschrifften, Bücher, Karten und Gemählde gedruckt und gemaehlet, ohne alles straffen, zuvorab auff den gemeinen Jahrmärkten, Messen und in anderen Versammlungen umbgetragen, feil gegeben, verkaufft und ausgebreitet, darunter dann auch niemand, es sie Obrigkeit, Herr oder Unterthan verschonet werde.”

375 Reformirte und Gebesserte Polizei-Ordnung (1577), article XXXV, §1. “Wiewohl auff vielen hievor gehaltenen Reichstägen, weyland Unsere loblichen Vorfahren, sich mit Churfürsten, Fürsten und Ständen des Heil. Reichs und der abwesenden Bottschafften vereinigt und verglichen, auch Satzung und Ordnung im Druck ausgehen und verkündigen lassen haben, 196

occurred in spite of legislation forbidding it, was indicative of the need to police printed expression more effectively.

The recesses threatened the administrators and enforcers for their failures, assuming that non-compliance of printers and booksellers with imperial censorship laws was a product of negligence or contempt on the part of the estates. The recess for the diet at Nuremberg (1524) appealed to the estates’ sense of duty as “patrons and protectors of the faith,” and offered support to those encountering resistance.376 The imperial recesses’ avuncular tone did not survive into the

1530s. By the time the Empire released the recess for Augsburg in 1530, as discussed above, imperial patience with the estates’ apparent recalcitrance was at a low ebb. In addition to repeating established censorship provisions – the general prohibition of libels, pre-publication review, and the requirement of identifying information – the recess announced the Imperial Chamber Court’s power to “pursue punishment against such an authority, whomever they might be, where the authority has been deemed careless” in their observance of the aforementioned provisions.377 Imperial authorities stopped short of detailing the penalties the Imperial Chamber Court might impose, and in the period under consideration the archival materials do not yield concrete examples of estates suffering

dass in allen Truckereyen, auch bey allen Buchführen und Händlern, mit ernstem Fleiss Versehung gethan, dass hinfüro nichts neues, so Oberkeit wegen nicht ersehen, insonderheit aber, dass keine Schmähschrifften, Gemählds oder dergleichen weder offentlich noch heimlich gedicht, getruckt und feyl gehabt werden sollen, wie dann dieselbe Abschied, sonderlich aber der in Anno etc siebentzig zu Speyer auffgericht worden ist, ferner mitbringen: So befinden Wir doch, dass ob denselben Satzungen gar nichts gehalten, sondern dass solche schmähliche Bücher, Schrifften, Gemählds und Gemächts, je länger, je mehr gedicht, gedruckt, gemacht, feyl gehabt und ausgebreit werden.”

376 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Nuremberg (1524), §28. “Ob aber jemands derselben Beschwerung oder Verhinderung begegnet oder zustünde, mag solches Unserm Statthalten und Regiment anzeigen, die haben von Uns Befehl, wie Wir ihnen hiermit ernstlich befehlen, den Ansuchenden Hülff und Rath mitzutheilen, darob zu halten und dasselbig Unser Mandat mit allem Fleiss zu exequiren.”

377 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1530), §58. “Un wo einige Obrigkeit, sie wäre wer sie solle, hierinn lässig befunden würde, alsdann mag und soll Unser Kayserlicher Fiscal, gegen derselben Obrigkeit um die Straff procediren und fortfahren, welche Straff nach Gelegenheit jeder Oberkeit, und derselben Fahrlässigkeit, Unser Kayserlich Kammergericht zu setzen und zu taxieren Macht haben soll.”

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official sanction or punishment because of their censorial failings. What was clear was that the burden for satisfactory enforcement of imperial censorship hung heavily around the necks of electors, princes, civic magistrates, and university faculties.

Imperial censorship provisions were ultimately directed at authors, printers, publishers, and booksellers, on whose activities imperial authorities vacillated between ambivalence and disdain.

The Edict of Worms offered its regulations as means “for printers to defend against the evils which come from the abuse of the praiseworthy craft of printing.” This attitude was not unique to the imperial government, however. Officials of all types, even in their more sympathetic moments, echoed a deep-seated uncertainty about the print trade. In 1541, the Augsburg city council tempered its declaration of print’s divine provenance with the observation that the press had been

“misused to the point that one may wonder whether it is more harmful than constructive, for as much evil as good arises from it, without any distinction between them.”378 The dual nature of the printing press – a gift from God offered for the benefit of humanity and an amplifier for falsity, dissent, and distrust – justified its regulation. The invention of print indubitably made a significant and enduring impact on early modern European culture and society. Printed books offered, as

Elizabeth Eisenstein noted more than three decades ago, an unprecedented degree of typographical fixity, durability, and reproducibility that served scholarship and discovery admirably.379

Yet the effects of these “advancements” were not universally positive and unproblematic.

Early modern authorities alluded to this fact in statements like those presented above, suggesting that there was nothing inherently credible about the fixity, durability, and reproducibility afforded by

378 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 23.

379 Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).

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the printing press. The press was an instrument, lacking objectively beneficial qualities. Credibility is distinct from fixity, durability, and reproducibility insofar as trustworthiness is a construct rather than a quality. Adrian Johns has convincingly argued in books and articles for most of the past decade that, in contrast to Eisenstein’s starry-eyed (i.e. weakly demonstrated) reverence for the press’s salutary contributions to Western science and culture, trust in print was earned over the course of generations, typically reinforced by self-policing and state-issued censorship provisions.380

Printing did not surge into history in the full bloom of maturity, like Athena springing fully arrayed in her armaments from Zeus’ cleaved forehead. Instead, bookmen worked in earnest, often with authorities, to gain trust in the printing press and then to preserve it. Thus, censorship laws reflected dual concerns: first, giving guidelines for the control of tradesmen and, second, instructing censorship officials in how to go about it. Both tradesmen and officials were responsible for observing and upholding the law; both were culpable when there was a general failure to do so.

This two-fold culpability was evident in imperial law, which assumed a dichotomy between disorder and order to which both printers and lesser authorities contributed if imperial law did not fetter them. At a distance somewhat remote from imperial commandments, were members of the

380 Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1998); “Science and the Book in Modern Cultural Historiography,” in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 29 (1998): 167-194; here 188-194. It must be said that the debate between Eisenstein and Johns over the qualities and values of the printing press are less about the printing press per se than they are about the qualities and value of the things that the press were designed to make; i.e. books et. al. The point Johns makes, expressed also by the Augsburg city council in 1541 cited above, is that the press was equally capable of spreading what contemporaries regarded as falsity (evil) as it was capable of spreading what contemporaries regarded as truth (good). See too Andrew Pettegree, “Centre and Periphery in the European Book World,” in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 18 (2008): 101-128; here 101-102. Pettegree finds it “curious that as other teleological progress-oriented historical interpretations have fallen out of favor, [Eisenstein’s] view of print and progress has proven so remarkably tenacious” (101). He observes that this is not all Eisenstein’s doing because, after all, “the first producers of printed books themselves maintained a constant litany in praise of print” (101) and “In the fifteenth century curiosity and enthusiasm for the new invention appeared to be universal” (102). Moreover, there was remarkable expansion of the trade across Europe, which saw printing presses in over 250 locations by the end of the fifteenth century. Pettegree argues that contemporary praise, curiosity, ethusiasm, and expansion (i.e. Eisenstein’s “evidence”) aside, the print industry endured a severe crisis that witnessed a dramatic contraction of the trade and “necessitated a swift and brutal restructuring of the industry even before the first generation of experimental works had been concluded” (102).

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Empire’s print trade, who continued to create and peddle offensive, illegal materials to the detriment of the Empire’s peace and stability. Beginning in Augsburg in 1530, at the latest, imperial law no longer mitigated its frustrations with appeals to the printing press’s higher calling. Instead, authorities preferred candor. The recesses continued to hand down censorship laws “because many evils have heretofore been generated by means of disorderly printers.”381 More immediate to the reach of imperial commandments, and standing in opposition to the “disorderly” (unordentlich) printers were the Empire’s authorities, agents of “order” to whom the imperial government had handed imperial law. The prohibition against libels and the execution of other censorship provisions were not aimed directly at the “disorderly printers” but rather at “each and every elector, prince, and estate of the Empire, whether spiritual or worldly.”382 The negligence of these agents contributed to the erosion of order. Hence, responsible authorities could expect punishment from the Imperial Chamber Court, according to the threats of imperial censorship laws. Even though imperial authorities vaguely contemplated punishments against magistrates or lords on rare occasions, namely in the case against Georg Zeämann and the city of Kempten, there is no clear indication that imperial officials prosecuted their local counterparts for neglecting their censorial duties.

Why was it so important for local authorities to be in charge of administering and enforcing censorship laws? When we discuss censorship’s aim of controlling the production, distribution, and the communication of ideas, we are talking about attempts to control the formation of public

381 Recess for the Imperial Diet at Augsburg (1530), §58. “Und nachdem durch die unordentliche Truckerey biss anhero viel Ubels enstanden…”

382 Ibid.

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opinion.383 In an essay on the spread of Reformation ideas and the transformation of the

Reformation into a popular movement, R. W. Scribner defined public opinion as “no more than the frame of mind of those people who constitute a ‘public’, essentially all those concerned with an event or situation and likely to become involved with its consequences.”384 Authorities – whether imperial, territorial, or urban – were concerned about public opinion because, as Scribner’s observation suggested, the achievement of consensus prompted concerted action and was thus integral to deploying a potentially dislocating and destabilizing popular movement. The more momentum an idea gained vertically (within a community) and horizontally (across communities) the more difficult it was to control and suppress. Imperial authorities had learned this lesson, if only too slowly. The success of the Reformation, after all, was attended by the failure of the Edict of Worms to constrain it; some contemporaries explained the outbreak of the Peasants’ War as a failure to control and direct the Reformation message with greater dexterity. Thus, authorities’ concern with the censorship of the print industry surpassed the market interests of craftsmen or increasing public trust in the press. It was taken for granted that authorities ranging from the emperor to individual

383 The formation of public opinion was also the purpose of censorship’s corrollary, propaganda. See Reinhard’s discussion of propaganda, polemic, and censorship in the process of confessionalization in Reinhard, “Pressures towards Confessionalization”; Diethelm Böttcher, “Propaganda und öffentliche Meinung in protestantischen Deutschland, 1628- 1636,” in Archiv für Reformartionsgeschichte 44 (1953): 181-203; E. Tortarolo, “Censorship and the Conception of the Public in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany: Or, are Censorship and Public Opinion Mutually Exclusive?,” in Shifting the Boundaries: Transformation of the Languages of Public and Private in the Eighteenth Century, D. Castiglione and L. Sharpe eds. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1995), 131-150; Alexander Heintzel, Propaganda im Zeitalter der Reformation: Persuasive Kommunikation im 16. Jahrhundert (St. Augustin: Gardez Verlag, 1998); and Andrew Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Charles Walton, Policing Public Opinion in the French Revolution: The Culture of Calumny and the Problem of Free Speech. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009; Darnton, The Devil in the Holy Water, 87; 99-100.

384 R. W. Scribner, “Oral Culture and the Diffusion of Reformation Ideas,” in Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London and Ronceverte: The Hambledon Press, 1987): 49-69; here 63.

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city councils ensured social order and stability, and that in an effort to watch out for public welfare, these authorities would regulate expression.385

The imperial recesses were pre-occupied with printed materials, as opposed to manuscripts and oral communication, which raises the long-debated question of print’s proper place in the communication network of early modern Germany. German society was largely illiterate – or semi- literate, at best – in the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries. Although the determination of premodern literacy rates is anything but simple and is ever-vulnerable to debate, scholarship on early modern education has strongly suggested that the Reformation’s initial emphasis on Bible-reading and focus on the education did not radically transform literacy rates.386 In consideration of this fact alone, how influential was print? Orality existed alongside print in the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries as an instrument for shaping and mobilizing public opinion. It is safe to question the singular influence of print in the Reformation along with A. G. Dickens, who pointedly wondered whether historians had leaned too heavily on the printing press as a vehicle for the Reformation,

385 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 13-14 and 19-20. In the first place, Creasman points out that early modern German Catholics and Protestants had different assumptions about the “place of intellectual inquiry and received authority” than did the post-Enlightenment culture that placed a premium on the moral value of individual expression and the freedom of that expression. The post-Enlightenment emphasis on the fundamental right for the individual to express him- or herself has, she observes, “colored the historical approach to early modern German censorship.” Namely, although it goes unstated here, Creasman is making the salutary point that modern approaches to pre- and early-modern German censorship (arguably all pre-Enlightenment censorship) are too modern, missing the fundamental distinctions that separated pre-modern from modern views of dissent, heterodoxy, expression, and thus censorship. In the second place, Creasman observes that policing efforts were not simply handed down to a completely passive population. Rather, “Most citizens, both within the book trade and in the community at large, shared the magistrates’ view that regulation of expression was not only appropriate but essential to protect the public welfare.”

386 David Cressy, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980); “Levels of Illiteracy in England, 1530-1730,” in The Historical Journal 20 (1977): 1-23; “Literacy in Seventeenth-Century Englad: More Evidence,” in The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8 (1977): 141-150; Richard Gawthrop and Gerald Strauss, “Protestantism and Literacy in Early Modern Germany,” in Past & Present 104 (1984): 31-55; R. A. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education, 1500-1800 (New York: Longman, 1988).

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thereby reimagining the central slogan of the Reformation as “Justification by Print Alone.”387

Communication networks were multifaceted, Scribner contended. There were visual forms of communication (woodcuts) alongside particpational modes (festivals and rituals) and oral modes

(hymns, ballads, rumor, gossip, sermons, etc).388 Scribner himself produced a magisterial study of visual modes of communication in the German Reformation.389 Scholars have extensively examined and debated the importance of preaching, sermons, and pastors in the (mostly oral) communication of Reformation ideas to popular audiences.390 Participational forms of communication in early modern Europe (rituals, namely) have been well-scrutinized by scholars as well.391

One should be cautioned against drawing a firm boundary between the two cultures, oral and print, however, as the boundaries between them were abundantly permeable. Scribner referenced the “complexity of communication processes,” which included such phenomena as

387 A. G. Dickens, “Intellectual and Social Forces in the German Reformation,” in Reformation Studies (London: The Hambledon Press, 1982): 491-504; here 502.

388 Scribner, “Oral Culture and the Diffusion of Reformation Ideas,” 50.

389 R. W. Scribner, For the Sake of Simple Folk: Popular Propaganda for the German Reformation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).

390 Scribner, “Oral Culture and the Diffusion of Reformation Ideas,” 51-54; Susan C. Karant-Nunn, “Luther’s Pastors: The Reformation in the Ernestine Countryside,” in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 69 (1979): 1-80; Gerald Strauss, “The Mental World of a Saxon Pastor,” in Reformation Principle and Practice: Essays in Honour of Arthur Geoffrey Dickens, ed. Peter Newman Brooks (London: Scolar Press, 1980): 159-170; Patrick Ferry, “Martin Luther on Preaching: Promises and Problems of the Sermon as a Source of Reformation History and as an Instrument of the Reformation,” in Concordia Theological Quarterly 54 (1990): 265-280; C. Scott Dixon, The Reformation and Rural Society: The Parishes of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach, 1528-1603 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Patrick Ferry, “Confessionalization and Popular Preaching: Sermons against Synergism in Reformation Saxony,” in Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997): 1143-1166; Bernd Moeller, “What was Preached in German Towns in the Early Reformation?”, in The German Reformation: The Essential Readings, ed. C. Scott Dixon (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999), 36- 52; Susan C. Karant-Nunn, “Preaching the Word in Early Modern Germany,” in Preachers and People in the Reformations and Early Modern Period, ed. Larissa Taylor (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 2001), 193-219; Beth Kreitzer, “The Lutheran Sermon,” in Preachers and People in the Early Modern Period, ed. Larissa Taylor (Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 2001), 35-63.

391 Susan C. Karant-Nunn, The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany (London and New York: Routledge, 1997; Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

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“multiplication effects,” the “multi-step flow of information,” and “Vora’s spiral model of the diffusion of concepts,” all of which, their particularities aside, involved a blend of orality and print in the diffusion and reception of ideas.392 Andrew Pettegree has recently published a systematic study of the variety of communication modes at work in the so-called “culture of persuasion” that induced people to convert to Protestantism in the first generations of the Reformation.393 Libel was a form of literature known to blend orality and print.394 Any of these modes of communication could be – and were – translated into print from oral communication or mediated by the printed word into oral communication, forming a complex and multi-tiered communications network that linked individuals to one another within communities, and communities to one another throughout the

Empire.

The nature of the multi-tiered communication network reinforced the imperial government’s preoccupation with print, on the one hand, and underlined its reliance on local authorities for the administration and enforcement of censorship, on the other hand. Both oral and printed ideas were derived from, and in turn entered, into public opinion at the local level. In Scribner’s previously cited essay on the diffusion of Reformation ideas, which synthesized social-science research, he argued, in part, that public opinion was geographically stratified, mediated by a host of factors and conditions, including communication modes. Scribner identified local, regional, and transregional

392 Scribner, “Oral Culture and the Diffusion of Reformation Ideas,” 62-69.

393 Pettegree, The Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion.

394 Fox, “Ballads, Libels and Popular Ridicule.” Although he confines his analysis to England, Fox argues that libels get away from the dichotomies that typify explanations of early modern society and culture in general, namely Elite vs. Popular Culture. According to his findings, libels were oral, imaged, handwritten, and printed, thus moving between the modes of discourse that are usually discussed as either Elite or Popular. He also observes, as we discussed previously, that there was a relatively constant state of tension in the social sphere to which libels gave vent, permitting those without official authority to regulate social behavior (usually of social elites) through public shaming, hence their association with modes of communication produced by and directed toward a “popular” audience.

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levels in the communications network, all of which were largely dependent on oral communication but which involved written and printed communication as well. Public opinion was generated at the local level chiefly through rumor, gossip, private discussions, public incidents, and scandals that “set the community talking.”395 At the regional level of diffusion, people brought news, gossip, rumors, and private correspondence with them into areas beyond their local communities where they traveled for regular economic and social activities.396 Finally, the transregional level was “really only an enlarged version of this regional sphere, linking region to region through the natural channels along which trade and travelers passed.”397

In terms of forming a public opinion, books played an important but comparatively limited role in the dissemination of ideas between and within communities. Scribner observed, correctly, that at both the regional and transregional levels “the printed word was spread no more quickly than the spoken word, for books must always be carried by people, who can pass on ideas as quickly and as effectively from person to person as can print.”398 Ultimately, ideas from distant communities, spread between communities regionally and transregionally, was translated back into the local setting by an “opinion leader,” who gave the information “greater local effect and immediacy.”399 Although

Scribner conceded that censorship could be “remarkably effective where it was carefully and vigorously applied,” the complex, multi-tiered nature of the communication process nevertheless

395 Scribner, “Oral Culture and the Diffusion of Reformation Ideas,” 64.

396 Ibid.

397 Ibid.

398 Ibid.

399 Ibid., 65.

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made full censorship of ideas extremely difficult and highly unlikely.400 To the extent that the dissemination of ideas could be controlled at all, the essentially oral, face-to-face transmission of information in premodern Germany meant that policing was necessary at the local and regional levels. The geographical stratification of the communication network discussed above mirrored the geographical stratification of the Empire’s legal jurisdictions. The imperial government was concerned with the transregional spread of ideas, and left the management of regional and local levels to the various electors, princes, and civic magistrates to decide.401 While princes and magistrates endeavored to confessionalize the production and reception of printed materials in their territories, as one article has suggested the book trade in any given locale “could never be entirely homogenized by secular and ecclesiastical censorship – a fact attributable to the economic interests of the printers and booksellers, who were less concerned with orthodox beliefs than with material gain.”402

To the extent that print culture was defined by its typographical fixity and durability, and could thus be circulated over greater distances (i.e. transregionally) with its ideas more or less intact, it serves as a likely explanation of why imperial regulators showed greater concern with printed items rather than with oral communication per se. This is not to suggest that they were unconcerned with the potential threats posed by rumor and gossip. As mentioned, imperial legislation banned broad categories and types of speech acts. Even though the recesses and mandates opted for printed

400 Ibid., 62.

401 I think it is an interesting question, and one for which I do not currently possess enough knowledge to even hazard a guess, how involved the Reichskreise were in the administration and enforcement of imperial censorship laws, if at all. As seen in the last chapter, the Swabian Circle became involved in at least one imperial censorship case (Zeämann’s), although it provided comparatively little input compared with others.

402 Ute Lotz-Heumann and Matthias Pohlig, “Confessionalization and Literature in the Empire, 1555-1700,” in Central European History 40 (2007): 35-61; here 49 (for the citation above) and 46-49 for a summary overview of censorship and attempts at contolling and confessionalizing the book market. 206

discourse, the legislation did not preclude the regulation and criminalization of disruptive oral discourse. The regional and local levels, where popular was digested by local communities primarily through verbal or visual or performative communication, were the preserve of the estates. Imperial censorship legislation deferred to local authorities in the administration and enforcement of the laws there, since they were better placed to police non-printed communication than the scant imperial officials and institutions.

It is important to remember that imperial censorship laws themselves blurred the lines between modes of communication, too. The provisions outlined in imperial recesses reached the

Empire’s populace through a mélange of orality and print no less than did other ideas. Censorship regulations journeyed between communities as printed manifestos. Imperial recesses and mandates traveled through the hands of the Empire’s political hierarchy and its agents until they were publicly posted and, perhaps more importantly, read aloud to communities gathered specifically to hear them. The Edict of Worms, for example, had ordered as much, stating, “We ask and command that

‘with the sounding of the trumpet’ you call the people from the four corners of the villages and cities where this edict will be published and gather them where it is customary to publish our edicts and mandates.” Imperial censorship provisions, like other ideas, ran an interpretative gauntlet, passing transregionally, regionally, and locally through a variety of channels and communication modes.

Along the way, embellishments, adaptations, additions, and omissions, and otherwise snarled their meanings. Moreover, strategies for scaling down ambitious (and fundamentally ambiguous) declarations and translating them into local settings created a gulf between the intended message and the received message. In other words, imperial censorship laws confronted the same gap stretching 207

between the transmission and reception of ideas that had unnerved members of the book trade and authorities alike since Luther’s ideas had spread across the Empire with unanticipated results.403

Retracing the chain of transmission of each imperial censorship law, along with charting how each was received, has not, to my knowledge, been done and is not attempted here. Yet, there are several – admittedly isolated – examples to support the broad assertions that, first, imperial censorship provisions did not filter into the Empire in the ways that imperial officials had probably hoped and, second, that those provisions did not filter into each locale in precisely the same manner.

The latter probably determined, to a significant but unquantifiable degree, the former. The Police

Ordinance of 1548, for example, did not enter Electoral Saxony intact. As discussed already, the

Police Ordinance narrowed its definition of criminally libelous books by targeting writings “against the common Catholic teaching and the holy Christian church,” effectively reasserting the illegality of

Protestant texts. The emperor’s attempt to reintroduce Catholicism into Protestant lands (among other things) aggrieved Elector Moritz of Saxony, who had betrayed his Lutheran cohort during the

War of Schmalkald to assist Emperor Charles V to victory. Yet, Elector Moritz had gained too much – i.e. his electorate – to openly ignore the Police Ordinance and refuse his legal obligation to institute it throughout his lands. Instead, Lutheran electoral Saxony declared an edited version of

403 Mark U. Edwards, Jr., “’Lutherschmähung’? Catholics on Luther’s Responsibility for the Peasants’ War,” in The Catholic Historical Review 76 (1990): 461-480. Protestant observers accused Catholics of defamation when it came to laying the blame for the Peasants’ War at Luther’s feet. Edwards here assessed whether that was actually the case, and concludes that Luther was not defamed by the accusation. He argues that blaming Luther for the Peasants’ War was only defamation depending what side one was on, although he maintains that since Catholic controversialists were not maliciously setting out to ruin Luther’s good name they were not technically defaming him. Catholics read Luther differently because they had different expectations; Luther’s rhetoric tended to overpower his theology; and events (i.e. the Twelve Articles of the peasants) confirmed Catholics suspicions about Luther and his movement. This is to say Catholic readings of Luther’s rhetoric led Catholic authorities to believe that the Peasants’ War was a foreseeable result of Luther’s vision of, and strategy for, reform.

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the Police Ordinance, one that substituted “a general prohibition of Schmähbücher – or libels – with the explicitly pro-Catholic provisions of the legislation entirely read out of the text.”404

Imperial censorship laws, it bears repeating, addressed the estates, who were obligated to pass the laws along to their subjects and citizens. Thus, territorial and civic officials served, individually, as the medium through which authors, printers, booksellers, and buyers learned about the laws. In the aggregate, as the first part of this chapter suggested, imperial censorship laws offered vaguely-worded prohibitions of broad categories of speech alongside unelaborated provisions and expectations. As Allyson Creasman has observed, “The vagueness of the law created frequent opportunities for evasion and political jockeying,” and noted further, “Questions of interpretation gave recalcitrant local officials an excuse to suspend enforcement of decrees without overtly denying the emperor’s authorities.”405 In the above example, Elector Moritz made a calculated change to imperial censorship legislation as he had received it, deliberately altering the range of interpretative possibilities attached to the provision. In this instance, however, Elector

Moritz did not merely exploit the vagueness of the law but rather affirmed it. In lieu of making a vague law more specific, he instead made a comparatively specific prohibition more general in service to his confessional politics. This strategy was not novel to electoral Saxony, since imperial censorship laws had generally favored vaguery over specificity for the interpretative flexibility the latter had afforded. Territorial rulers, as this example shows, behaved commensurately when it suited them.

Officials elsewhere attempted a resolution to the ambiguity of imperial censorship laws by making additions, rather than furtively making omissions. These additions eased the translation of

404 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 56; Hasse, Zensur theologischer Bücher in Kursachsen, 26.

405 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 56. Creasman offers this assessment in connection with the case of Elector Moritz of Saxony’s alterations to the 1548 Police Ordinance. 209

the Empire’s broad censorship laws into specific, local contexts. It is difficult – if not impossible – to historicize the effects of these types of changes, although their anticipated consequences can be reconstructed. Local authorities dissolved the vagaries of imperial censorship law by providing supplemental information. Such information could not openly contradict imperial law. Alterations, even if well- and obediently intentioned, unavoidably shifted the interpretative tone into a new key.

Imperial censorship laws were mediated to a local print community through local authorities, whose immediate concerns unavoidably framed their presentation of imperial legislation. Imperial censorship laws occurred alongside a host of local expectations and considerations, to which local mandates or ordinances often referred as the raison d’etre for the legislation. These additions affected the meaning of censorship legislation at the local level no less than Emperor Charles V’s addition of explicitly pro-Catholic language to the Police Ordinance of 1548 or Elector Moritz’s omission of it.

The Frankfurt Printers’ Ordinance of 1598

The Frankfurt Printers’ Ordinance of 1598 tenders a useful example.406 Issued on 10

October 1598, the Frankfurt Printers’ Ordinance was a joint effort among Frankfurt’s master- printers and the city council to codify a comprehensive trade regulation in the city that included general expectations derived from imperial law, and responses to recent and recurring problems.407

There were three parts. First, the Ordinance outlined its censorship provisions largely in accordance with, and with brief reference to, imperial censorship law. Frankfurt’s civic leaders, like their

406 Frankfurt City Council, Eines Erbarn Raths ernewerte Ordnung und Artickel / wie es forthin auff allen Truckereyen / in dieser Statt Franckfurt soll gehalten werden (Frankfurt am Main: Johann Saur, 1598).

407 Friedemann Kawohl, “Commentary on German Printers' and Booksellers' Ordinances and Statutes,” in Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), ed. L. Bently & M. Kretschmer (2008), accessed 15 March 2015, http://copy.law.cam.ac.uk/cam/tools/request/showRecord.php?id=commentary_d_1660#_ednref18

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imperial counterparts, wasted little time justifying regulatory measures in terms of preserving the trade’s temperance and respectability. The Frankfurt Ordinance observed at the outset that its regulations did not come from an inherent hostility to the print trade. Rather, it maintained, “the praiseworthy art of printing is a special grace and gift of God, by means of which not only the Word of God but also all free arts and many other things necessary to human life have been brought to light and disseminated.”408 The Frankfurt Ordinance echoed imperial print legislation’s insistence that, befitting an art with such a lofty provenance and purpose, its practitioners – more so than practitioners of other trades – ought to remain “honest and upright people in their life and actions both within and outside the printing shop.”409 The implication was that this Ordinance, as all censorship and regulatory laws, was a safeguard against abuse of the print trade. Preserving the respectability of the print trade meant instructing bookmen in what they were, and were not, permitted to do. First but not necessarily foremost on the agenda was the illegality of libelous books, which the laws of the “Holy Empire” had forbidden to be printed or sold.410 It appeared

408 Eines Erbarn Raths ernewrte Ordnung und Artickel (1598), 3. “Und erstlich / dieweil män[n]iglich erken[n]en muß / daß die löbliche Kunst der Truckerey ein sonderliche Gnade und Gabe Gottes sey / dardurch nicht allein Gottes Wort / sondern auch sonsten alle freye Künste und vielerley gute Sachen dem menschlichen Leben nothwendig / an den Tag gebracht / und biß dahero vort gepflantzet worden seind.”

409 Ibid., 3-4. “So sollen auch zu solchem Werck un[d] Handel / billich vor alle[n] andern Handwercken / ehrliche un[d] unverleumbte Personen gezogen / und gebraucht werden / welche sich auch hernacher in ire[n] Thun und Leben / so wol in / als ausserhalb den Truckereyen eines venünfftigen / bescheydenen / und erbaren Wandels befleissigen / damit nicht allein Gott geehret werde / sondern auchg ein jeder insonderheit seiner Person halben böser un[d] straffbarlicher Nachreden entladen / un[d] umb eines oder deß andern unerbarn Lebens willen / der gantze ubrige Coetus unverkleiner bleibe.”

410 Ibid., 4. “Also auch deß heyligen Reichs Constitutiones unnd Saztungen allen und jeden Ständen / und also fürnemlich den Truckern aufferlegen und verbieten / kein Famos Libell oder Schmehschrifft weder heimlich noch öffentlich zutrucken / auch anderstwo getruckt / nicht feyl zuhaben.”

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that, with regard to libelous materials, the Frankfurt Ordinance was content to defer to imperial law, vaguely threatening bodily punishment to transgressors of it.411

For all intents and purposes, that represented the cursory end of the Frankfurt Ordinance’s direct engagement with imperial law. The decision to stop short of explicitly defining libel as the city’s magistrates understood it requires a closer look. It was possible that Frankfurt’s civic leaders parroted the oft-repeated imperial ban on libels to fulfill their duties under imperial law, which commanded that they make the Empire’s expectations known. Libel was, as discussed already, the only type of discourse categorically prohibited under imperial law, and even there, it went undefined.

They were under no obligation, as far as imperial law was concerned, to define the term more explicitly; it was enough to declare libel illegal and punishable. Of course, they (and other magistrates and princes also) were still on the hook if imperial authorities determine that Frankfurt’s bookmen were producing and peddling libelous books. Perhaps for that reason, it should be noted, imperial law had not invited local authorities to illustrate or refine their own legal understanding of the term. Vagueness could serve a useful purpose for all parties involved in censorship.

It was possible, too, that Frankfurt’s civic magistrates agreed with the Empire’s ban on libel in principle, or found it otherwise useful, and therefore included it at the beginning of the Ordinance rather than tucking it away somewhere less conspicuous. It is arguable that references to imperial censorship legislation and its ban on libels were not required. Imperial law did not stipulate how or when local authorities informed their bookmen of the laws, only that they did so. Accordingly, we can speculate, reasonably I believe, that the civic magistrates in Frankfurt included only provisions

411 Ibid. “So wöllen wir hiemit alle und jede Trucker unnd Gesellen ernstlich erinnert und vermahnet haben / solchen deß H. Reichs Ordnungen getrewlich nachzusetzen / und darwider nicht zu thun / bey denen darinn gesetzen Peenen / un[d] sonderlich der Leibs Straff / die wir der Rath nach Befindung der Sachen gegen den Ubertrettern zu schärpffen / uns hiemit vorbehalten.”

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and regulations that addressed pressing issues in the Frankfurt Ordinance; i.e. those they chose to include, rather than those they simply felt compelled to address according to their obligation to honor imperial demands. This perspective gains support from the fact that other elements of imperial censorship law occurred apropos of the Frankfurt Ordinance’s foremost concerns. It contained, for example, a section on pre-publication censorship, ordering that printers and publishers deliver all publications to the city authorities for review and approval.412 That published books underwent pre-publication review was, as discussed, an early and oft-repeated demand of imperial censorship. Yet the Frankfurt Ordinance of 1598 did not command pre-publication censorship in the name of imperial law as it had done with its proscription of libels. Rather, the pre- publication review in this instance unfolded against the background of deepening concern over the deleterious effects of reprinting among Frankfurt’s printers and publishers. Before 1598, Frankfurt’s pre-publication requirements were arguably less stringent. The Frankfurt Printer’s Ordinance of

1588 expected members of the book trade to submit a catalog of their productions to authorities twice a year as evidence of compliance.413 Market competition among Frankfurt’s bookmen had apparently encouraged reprinting and other underhanded practices, which prompted the city council to assert its custodianship over the local book trade, as a guild might in other contexts, in order to encourage “printers to live in peace and unity with one another and to make a living without harming this one or that one.”414

412 Ibid. “Und ins gemein nachmaln / wann sie Tractät und Bücher / so wol allerdings neuw / als alte widerumb aufflegen wöllen / daß sie dieselben allerdings verfertigt / sie es zu ediren bedacht / zuvorderst in unsere deβ Raths Canzley lieffern / doselbsten besichtigen / unnd die Erlaubnuß oder Vergünstigung nach gehabter Censur ihnen unnd andern zur Nachrivhtung auβwendig darauff verzeichnen lassen / abermals bey Vermeidung einer Leibs Straff / deren alle und jede Miβhändler / so wol Trucker als Gesellen unnachlässig gewertig seyn sollen.”

413 Kawohl, “Commentary,” www.copyrighthistory.org.

414 Eines Erbarn Raths ernewrte Ordnung und Artickel (1598), 4-5. “Nachdem auch uns dem Rath etwa vor diesem / sonderlich aber in newlichkeit von Truckern und Verlägern unter einander deβ nachdruckens unnd anderhalb sehr viel 213

Reprinting was the main concern of the 1588 Frankfurt Ordinance, and the 1598 Frankfurt

Ordinance that supplanted it did not alter its main points substantially. Insofar as it addresses reprinting, on the one hand, and labor relations between printers, publishers, and journeymen, on the other, the Frankfurt Ordinance’s section on printing in particular offers a fascinating glimpse into the more nefarious practices and dealings of the early modern print trade.415 The Frankfurt

Ordinance’s prevailing concern with reprinting was to protect the original producer of a given title or author, allowing the integration of the various aspects of imperial censorship law into a specific context. For example, the Frankfurt Ordinance made clear that deceitful printers or publishers made alterations to texts in order to offer them as “new,” including the use of different page sizes or titles, switching the names of authors, offering altered summaries or marginal notes, and the importation of reprinted local editions printed elsewhere back into the city for sale.416 New to the

1598 Frankfurt Ordinance was the command that authors were bound to their original publishers if they wished to bring out a new edition of a previous title, although publishers were not similarly beholden to authors.417 This emphasized the importance of identifying information on title pages and elsewhere, along with attempts to curb secret (re)printing beyond the reach of censorship

Klagens vorkommen: als seynd wir nicht unzeitig bewogen worden / nachdenckens zuhaben / wie doch solches Klagen ins künfftig / so viel müglich vorkommen werden / und sie die Trucker in guter Ruhe und Einigkeit bey einander wohnen / und ohn eines oder deβ andern Schaden sich ernehren möchten.”

415 Kawohl, “Commentary,” www.copyrighthistory.org. The Frankfurt Ordinance of 1598 drew together two major threads from previous ordinances: First, it addressed reprinting, with which we are primarily concerned. Second, it addressed the issue of labor relations between printers, publishers, and their journeymen, which had been the subject of an ordinance promulgated in Frankfurt in 1573. In fact, the 1598 Frankfurt Ordinance was occasioned by a such labor dispute in the previous year, which prompted a tête-à-tête between the city’s master printers and city council to address pressing and ongoing concerns about reprinting and labor relations collectively. Although it is interesting, the labor dispute does not bear directly on censorship per se, apart from demonstrating the point being made here: That civic magistrates regulated according to immediate concerns, and did not simply regurgitate imperial legislation as if laws were administered and enforced in a vacuum.

416 Eines Erbarn Raths ernewrte Ordnung und Artickel (1598), 5-7.

417 Ibid., 5-6.

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authorities, even though specific regulations about the names of printers and the place of publication were not included until an edition of the Frankfurt Ordinance issued nearly a century later, in

1690.418 Yet preventing this type of duplicity was the purpose of pre-publication review, whether in the form of semi-annual catalog review or the submission of each new printed work to city authorities. Both practices permitted authorities to compile, and then compare, lists of which printer or publisher produced which title(s) originally and when. While undoubtedly far less than universally effective, pre-publication review afforded authorities an opportunity to create publication records necessary for protecting the interests of original producers of texts and thus for maintaining a degree of order.

Deceitful practices associated with reprinting evidently occurred often enough to warrant not only special consideration in the Frankfurt Ordinances of 1588 and 1598, but also a special statement appended in 1598 to the discussion of labor relations involving apprentices, journeymen, and master printers in the same ordinance. It was a common and bothersome occurrence for journeymen to sneak printed sheets from one print shop to another, or to communicate information about an ongoing print job to competitors.419 The Frankfurt Ordinance asserted that, “journeymen and apprentices…or anyone else, whomever they may be, are utterly forbidden to remove a single printed page from the print shop without the prior consent of the master printer, or to reveal the typeface, paper size, or format” for the purpose of abetting reprinting.”420 In the end, the Frankfurt

418 Kawohl, “Commentary,” www.copyrighthistory.org.

419 Ibid. According to Kawohl, Luther himself had complained about sheets being stolen from Wittenberg’s presses.

420 Eines Erbarn Raths ernewrte Ordnung und Artickel (1598), 17. “…so soll den Gesellen und Lehrjungen hiemit / bey Vermeidung 20. Gülden und darzu nach Ermessigung deβ Wercks und der corruption / einer Gefängnuβ Straff (welche Wir jederzeit zubestim[m]en) gäntzliche[n] verbotten seyn / einigen getruckten Bogen auβ der Truckerey zutragen / oder jemanden / der sey auch we er wölle / ohne Vorbewust deβ Truckerherren ichtwas zu communicieren / dardurch der Litera, Grösse deβ Papiers / oder Formats verrahten / oder zum Nachdruck Anleytung unnd Vorschub gegeben werde.” 215

Ordinance covered a great deal of overlapping territory, traversing censorship concerns, trade regulation, and industry relations. Not only were these matters closely related to one another, their relationship was conditioned by prevailing contexts, from which the regulations were derived, to which they responded, and by means of which they were interpreted. To reiterate the main point:

Legal declarations, like all forms of discourse, had to be translated into action at the local level.

Returning to libel, it is possible to argue that it received limited treatment in the Frankfurt

Ordinance because the civic magistrates did not believe libels represented a serious problem in need of sustained redress, or that libels were not in abundant circulation and hence not a significant problem. This interpretation makes the questionable assumption, however, that libel’s inclusion in the Frankfurt Ordinance was a matter of fulfilling the city’s duty vis-à-vis imperial law and nothing more. Again, the need to pacify imperial observers may have played a role in determining the nature of libel’s inclusion, but did not necessarily determine whether it was included whatsoever; i.e. the necessity of pointing to imperial law may have determined the direct reference to imperial law itself, which as we have seen maintained an abiding concern with libels, but without implying a lack of regard for libels among Frankfurt’s magistrates. The foregoing discussion should caution against dismissing the libel prohibition as mere window dressing. Recognizing that one may have to seek an alteration or additional statement appended to the imperial libel ban as a signal of the translation into a local context, one discovers a potential signal with relative ease in the Frankfurt Ordinance.

Looking more closely at the Frankfurt Ordinance in the section immediately following the ban on libel, the city magistrates suggested their own prohibitions of certain kinds of literature, which may have been closer to their immediate concerns, and which provide a clue as to the city council’s working definition of libel and understanding of its illegality. Following the evocation of imperial

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law, the Frankfurt Ordinance forbade “love poems, leaflets, broadsheets, songs, newspapers” along with “other useless, profuse printings.”421

Setting aside the section break between imperial prohibitions of libel and the city’s own censorship provisions, the series of bans gives an idea of how civic authorities understood the

Empire’s ban on libels, categorizing them alongside unedifying and over-abundant varieties of printed materials, which was consistent with the Empire’s complaints about the frustratingly widespread circulation of libelous materials noted above. By virtue of its semi-annual book fairs,

Frankfurt was a major center for scholarly and commercial exchange not only in the Empire, but also for Europe.422 Like market towns in general, Frankfurt was a significant hub in regional and transregional communications networks, with which local authorities had to contend and try to control. It was a place, for instance, that served as a de facto postal station, where scholars, merchants, artisans, and other tradesmen exchanged (semi-) private correspondence, both for themselves and for others whose letters they agreed to pass along.423 Additionally, the information crossroad formed at Frankfurt attracted, and produced in turn, printed materials of lesser quality that did not burnish the city’s scholarly halo.424 “News” was in high demand, encouraging the production and circulation of broadsheets, newspapers, or gazettes (Messrelationen) conveying the

421 Eines Erbarn Raths ernewrte Ordnung und Artickel (1598), 4. “Bulenbriefe / Anbindtzettel / Hauβzettel / Lieder / neuwe Zeitungen / und was dergleichen unnütze / uppige Truck mehr seind / sollen in allen Truckereyen / so wol Truckern als Gesellen allerdings und ernstlich bey Vermeidung einer Straff / so wir der Rath nach Ermessung jederzeit hierauff erkennen werden / verbotten seyn.” Emphasis added.

422 MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 11. This was true especially of the European trade in learned, Latin publications.

423 Ibid., 15.

424 Ibid., 14. In this context, MacLean references Swiss humanist and publisher Henri II Estienne, who famously praised Frankfurt in the mid-to-late sixteenth century, in MacLean’s words, as a “modern Athens, a paradise of leaning and enlightenment, a city thronging with university professors and other scholars (some of whom walked halfway across Germany to be present at the book fair), who often stayed in the houses of the most prominent publishers, which buzzed with intellectual and literary activity.”

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“latest political and military news,” which “visiting publishers and scholars communicated […] to their families and colleagues at home.”425 News reports in the early modern world did not observe standards that modern observers might recognize as the core of journalistic integrity. Indeed, there was a fine line separating news, on the one hand, from uncorroborated rumors, gossip, polemic, and libel, on the other hand. For an example, remember the pamphlet against Cardinal Bellarmine, which was a satirical, gossipy, anti-Catholic polemic offered to potential readers as news. This was the kind of frivolous discourse that imperial libel prohibitions meant to curb at regional and transregional levels, and the Frankfurt Ordinance’s addendum meant to stifle locally. Together these provisions offered Frankfurt’s magistrates a way to utilize imperial authority to extend their authority across multiple communication networks, while modifying it for the sake of integration into the local context.

***

Libel was the anchor of imperial censorship law. Authorities surrounded their prohibition of libel with a variety of additional censorial mechanisms designed to limit the production and spread of illegal printed materials. These measures – pre-publication censorship, bans on anonymous and pseudonymous works, restrictions on the locations of printing presses, and the swearing of oaths – increased accountability, visibility, and accessibility, theoretically making the jobs of censors easier and engendering a degree of self-censorship among authors, printers, and booksellers. The problem was encouraging people to submit to these controls. Threats and punishments were one strategy.

Authorities realized that they needed to entice bookmen to cooperate by offering them something positive in exchange. Imperial and territorial rulers offered print privileges, which protected the

425 Ibid., 15.

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privilege-holders from deleterious reprinting. In exchange for the legal protection of the privilege grantors, the privilege holders submitted to pre-publication censorship. Privileges allowed authorities to barter with the print trade for access and control, even though it was limited because the practice was voluntary.

Imperial authorities relied heavily on the imperial estates to implement and enforce the

Empire’s censorship laws. Imperial law was content to grant local authorities tremendous discretion over the laws in their territories and cities. This arrangement freed local authorities from imperial interference, although it did burden them with imperial displeasure if they failed to be rigorous. It was a reflection of the decentralized organization of the Empire and the fact that, without their own representatives policing every town and university with a printing press, imperial authorities were distant from the action. Censorship was (is) a way to control the formation of public opinion, a means for shaping community consensus. If authorities wanted to control public opinion, they had to control information distribution locally, regionally, and transregionally. But the emphasis was always on the local level as the setting in which information communicated regionally and transregionally was translated into consensus and action. This meant that local authorities were the first and last lines of defense against the spread of dissident, provocative, and scandalous texts that would threaten the peace and unity in the Empire with violence and discord; i.e. against libels as early modern imperial authorities understood them. Local authorities, however, did not always share the same priorities as imperial authorities, which influenced the ways they rendered imperial laws actionable in their communities. Laws, no less than other forms of communication, had to be integrated into the local scene. This was sometimes a source of friction between local officials and imperial authorities, especially at transregional hubs in the book market where books, people, and ideas converged, mingled, and then dispersed. Imperial officials took a greater interest in these areas, believing them too important to be left underregulated by understaffed locals. 219

Chapter Six The Imperial Book Commission, ca. 1579-1650

The 1598 Frankfurt Ordinance had a glaring omission. Despite its willingness to acknowledge imperial authority, there was not a single reference to the Imperial Book Commission.

The omission was indicative of a fraught relationship. The imperial government’s censorial gaze fell squarely upon Frankfurt during the 1570s for the same reasons the city’s authorities issued increasingly comprehensive ordinances at about the same time. Ian MacLean noted, using the admittedly “crude” method of assuming that the number of book titles produced for a market reflected that market’s degree of importance, Frankfurt went from 117 titles between 1530 and 1535, to 316 titles between 1580 and 1585, and finally reached 1390 between 1611 and 1615.426 The activity at Frankfurt did not reflect the state of the Empire’s book market as a whole, and should not be regarded as indicative of such, but we can nevertheless surmise its importance as a trading center in books and ideas.427 We can also observe that Frankfurt’s importance was peaking at the same time that relations between the Empire’s confessions were hardening. Because of the regular flow of scholars, tradesmen, and books traveling to the semi-annual book fairs, Frankfurt’s print trade was too significant to be left underregulated. This chapter examines imperial efforts to regulate that market through the establishment of an imperial censorship institution, a book police, known as the

Imperial Book Commission. The only such institution created in this era, the Commission was a

426 Ibid., 4.

427 Frymire, The Primacy of the Postils, 423-424; f.n. 345. Writing of postil production and the presence of postils in the Frankfurt fair catalogs, Frymire observed, “The Frankfurt catalogs should remind us of something else that is no less important: the relation between total print production to what actually wound up at the fair. As instructive as they are, lists of books sold at Frankfurt say precious little about printing in Germany as a whole and should never be used as a major source for its analysis, nor can these catalogs tell us anything accurate about Catholic book production in Europe. What they simply tell us which among thousands of titles printers and book dealers chose to distribute in a particular way – a way that sought international customers but also focused very much on the German market.” On the correspondence between the significance of the Frankfurt book fairs and the deepening confessional divide in the Empire (and in Europe), see Brückner, “Die Gegenreformation,” 67.

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lightning rod for confessional controversy and jurisdictional wrangling in both expected and surprising ways.

The Establishment of the Imperial Book Commission

Although, as we have discussed, the estates shouldered the bulk of the administrative and enforcement burden where censorship laws were concerned, imperial authorities expressed frustration with how poorly Frankfurt exercised its custodianship. Frankfurt’s book fairs were important to imperial authorities before Emperor Rudolf II permanently yoked the Imperial Book

Commission to Frankfurt in 1579. Imperial dissatisfaction had prompted action by Emperor

Maximilian II in 1569, when he fielded an imperial book commission in the city in order to bring the book fair and its participants to heel. The impetus behind the Imperial Book Commission came from the publication of a political libel discovered at the fair in 1569, titled the Nightingale.428 Libels were a perpetual a concern for the Commission along with other difficulties to be discussed shortly.

As a result, Emperor Maximilian II became convinced that Frankfurt’s city council was not up to the task of overseeing the book fairs. Frankfurt’s magistrates conceded the point. One historian has claimed that the city council actually invited imperial assistance.429

From its first incarnation under Emperor Maximilian II through at least the mid-seventeenth century, the Imperial Book Commission addressed three key areas: Limiting the circulation of

“useless and defamatory books,” ensuring that books did not display bogus imperial privileges on

428 Brückner, “Die Gegenreformation,” 67.

429 Rotraut Becker, “Die Berichte des Kaiserlichen und Apostolischen Bücherkommissars Johann Ludwig von Hagen an die Romische Kurie (1623-1649), in Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 51 (1971): 422-465; here 423.

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their title pages, and collecting copies of exemplars owed to the imperial library.430 In pursuit of its mandate, the Imperial Book Commission drew considerable resistance and hostility from local authorities in Frankfurt. In the first place, there were jurisdictional skirmishes between the

Commission and the Frankfurt city council. This was not always the case, as much depended on the intrusiveness of the Commission and its agents. Under Emperor Maximilian II, and for a time under Emperor Rudolf II, the Imperial Book Commission was clearly only an adjunct to Frankfurt’s city council. Although the Commission acted in the name of the emperor and therefore possessed legal power of its own, it could not serve as a direct instrument of imperial power and enjoyed limited (but variable) authority to operate independently of Frankfurt’s civic magistrates.431 The two bodies – council and commission – were expected to cooperate with one another. The Commission interviewed bookmen and conducted visitations of their shops, collected book catalogs from printers, publishers, and booksellers, checked the accuracy of privileges, and organized the collection of due exemplars to be sent to the imperial library. In exchange, the city council was obliged to provide judicial support and policing assistance.432

At first, the two authorities – imperial and civic – shared responsibility without discernible rancor. A precondition for good relations was the relative unobtrusiveness of the Imperial Book

Commission. The commissioners, after all, were gathering the kinds of records that the city’s censors found useful for monitoring reprints, as evidenced by their demands for pre-publication censorship in the Frankfurt Ordinances of 1573 and 1598, respectively. The commissioners’ process

430 Ibid., 423-424. Of course, the Commission exercised other duties, such as the organization of the Frankfurt book fair catalogs, but these were somewhat ancillary to the principal duties listed here.

431 Brückner, “Die Gegenreformation,” 68.

432 Becker, “Die Berichte,” 423-424.

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for conducting their activities was uncomplicated. In what was essentially an interview with attending printers, publishers, and booksellers, the Commission asked questions and gave instructions to those gathered for the fairs. The commissioners inquired after privileges and exemplars, asking whether a bookman claimed a privilege for a certain book; whether he could prove his right to the privilege with an original document or a certified copy; whether he had turned in his due exemplars to the imperial court; whether he could demonstrate a license from his local authority attesting that his book(s) had been subjected to pre-publication review.433 The commissioners also asked, as much for Frankfurt’s authorities as for their own purposes, whether a bookman had yet submitted his catalog of books for the fair to the city council. If the bookman had not, the commissioners instructed him to submit a list to the Commission. Thereafter the commissioners reminded the gathered bookmen of their obligation to obey imperial law regardless of whether they were printers, publishers, or salesmen, or whether they resided in the Empire or abroad, that they should not have libelous or scandalous books, and that all printed materials should come with proof of pre-publication review from their regular authorities.434

433 13 April 1579, Protocol of the Imperial Book Commission, HHStA RHR BKR1, convolute 7, fasc. 1579, 1580, 1590, fols. 4-5; here 4r-4v. The third point in the protocol suggested that the commissioners asked for proof of pre- publication censorship as they were asking for proof of privileges. The sixth point of the protocol observed that after the inspections concluded, the commissioners instructed the assembled bookmen that, in the future, they could not participate in the book fairs unless they had secured proof of prior censorship and showed it to the commissioners at the fair. This suggests to me that, at least at the time of this protocol, the Imperial Book Commission was not turning bookmen away from the fair for failing to produce the required documentation. They were more permissive of those who claimed a privilege but failed to bring documentation, informing them that they could bring the original privilege or an authenticated copy to the following fair instead.

434 Ibid., fols. 4v-5r.

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Early Procedures

For the 1579 fairs, the commissioners compiled lists of bookmen in attendance, making notes that reflected the questions in the protocol. From 10-16 September, the Imperial Book

Commission’s representative, Johann Steinmetz, dean of the collegiate chapter (Stift) at St.

Bartholomew’s in Frankfurt, along with two representatives from the city council, Dr. Fichard and

Carl von Glauberg, interviewed nearly one hundred printers, publishers, and booksellers (including wholesalers).435 They organized their interviewees by their cities of origin, both foreign and domestic, noting of printers and publishers whether a given person possessed a privilege, had submitted his due copies, and had submitted a catalog of wares. The Imperial Book Commission had assembled intermittently in Frankfurt during the previous decade, meaning that imperial authorities already had some notion of who normally attended the fairs. It does not appear from the report in 1579 that the commissioners greeted the gathered bookmen unprepared for who they would find. The records suggest that the Commission was expecting people, as evidenced from the fact that they took note of those who did not attend.436 The commissioners made no additional comments about the absent bookmen.

Some – maybe one-third – of the exchanges described in the commissioners’ notes were straightforward. Printers brought evidence of their privileges and turned over their catalogs, if they had not done so previously. Arnold Milius from Cologne, for instance, displayed his general privilege from Emperor Ferdinand II, issued in 1560, had already sent his exemplars to the imperial

435 28 December 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1579, 1580, 1590, fols. 15-30; see also Brückner, “Die Gegenreformation,” 69-75.

436 28 December 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, fol. 27v.

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court, and turned over his catalog.437 From Strasbourg, Josias Rihel awaited confirmation of a privilege, which the Commission instructed him to display at a future fair in addition to his catalog.438 Josias’s brother, Theodosius, displayed a special privilege from Emperor Maximilian II dated 1570 for a variety of historical works, including Livy, Josephus, and Johannes Sleidan.439 It appeared that Theodosius had acquired the rights to books produced by other Strasbourgeoisie printers, including his father’s.440 Having printed nothing new in five years, Theodosius claimed, the commissioners were resigned to accept his previously submitted catalog.441 Caspar Behem from

Mainz handed over his general privilege from Emperor Maximilian II given in 1570 for “Catholic books,” and a special privilege from 1573 for the printing of the imperial recesses. He had already turned over his catalog.442

Others made short work for the commissioners by coming to sell their wares without claiming a privilege, without having printed anything new since they last submitted their catalog, or by supplementing their previous catalogs with whatever new titles they brought. Making the journey from Cologne, Theodorus Baum arrived in Frankfurt without any pretense to an imperial privilege,

437 Ibid., fol. 16v. “Arnoldus Milyus, wegen seiner unnd der Birckmanner, zeigt ein generale privilegium Ferdinandi Imperatoris, datum Anno 1560, hatt die Exemplaria gen hoeff / uberschickt, auch ein catalogum ubergeben.”

438 Ibid., fol. 17v. “Josias Riell. Erwart confirmationem seiner privilegien, welche er kunfftige meß soll ufflegen, neben ein Catalogo.”

439 Ibid. “Theodosius Riell, zeigt ein speciale Privilegium, Maximiliani Imp. de Dato anno 1570 super Commentaria Ioannis Schneidweins. Item aliud, super Livio, Josepho & Schleidano.”

440 Ibid. “Item aliud super omnes libros quos impressit Samuel Emel Argentinensis: Item aliud super libris impressis a patre suo.”

441 Ibid. “…hett zuvor ein Catalogum ubergeben, auch in funff Jharren nicht newes gedruckt.”

442 Ibid., fol. 19v. “Caspar Behem, zaigt generale Privilegium Maximiliani Imp. datum Spirae, anno 1570. Super libris Catholicis: / item aliud speciale, uber des Reichs Abscheidt, unndt waß denen anhangt, Datum Spirae anno 1573. Hatt zuvor sein Catalogum ubergeben.”

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had previously submitted his catalog, and “since the Easter Fair has not printed anything new.”443

Closer to home, Frankfurt printers Georg Rabe, Johann Feyerabendt, and Paul Reffler had no privileges and had printed nothing new.444 From Basel, Sebastian Petri awaited his privilege and had given over his catalog of books at another time.445 In one case, the commissioners noted that Jacob

Lutzen from Helmstatt had no privileges, implying that he had no catalog on record because “he has only in this year begun to print.”446 Those who claimed nothing special, who came with nothing new for sale since the last time they had attended, offered an exchange with the commissioners as uncomplicated as those who arrived prepared to meet their obligations.

By the time the Commission – an institution of post-publication censorship – encountered printers, publishers, and booksellers, the thorniest aspects of the censorship process were already concluded or otherwise ongoing. In theory at least, the Commission was simply checking that bookmen had followed pre-publication procedures sufficiently and without deception. Yet the halting and uneven progress of various pre-publication and other pre-fair censorship procedures complicated the Commission’s task enormously. There were myriad reasons and excuses – all plausible – why certain bookmen had failed to meet their responsibilities, which usually pointed toward bureaucratic malfeasance, miscommunication, and incompetence. Moreover, there were few possibilities for investigative recourse for the members of the Commission, especially for printers and booksellers residing outside Frankfurt. For those reasons, perhaps, printers who claimed a

443 Ibid., fol. 16v. “Theodorus Baum, hatt kein privilegium, hatt zuvor sein Catalogum ubergeben, auch seith der Fasten Meß nicht newes gedruckt.”

444 Ibid., fol. 20r.

445 Ibid., fol. 21v. “Sebastianus Petri, erwart ein Privilegium, zeigt dass Decretum, hat sein Indicem ubergeben in den andern messen.”

446 Ibid., fol. 25v. “Wolff Heill, Principalis, hat ein drucker mit namen Jacob Lutzen, hat kein Privilegium, hat dies Jhar erst / zudrucken angefangen.”

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privilege, but who had not submitted exemplars to imperial officials, were granted a great deal of leeway. There was no discernible effort to hassle, cajole, or hector privilege-holders into meeting their obligations; the commissioners apparently levied no fines and threatened no punishments, and they provided no specific dates or deadlines for the future submission of missing materials. Of

Gervinius Calenius, a lawyer and member of the city council at Cologne who possessed a privilege, the commissioners merely noted that he “shall send the [as yet undelivered] exemplars to either the imperial chancery or to the imperial procurator in Speyer.”447 The commissioners made identical or very similar notes for others who had neglected to send their due exemplars to the imperial court.448

Some printers who claimed a privilege indicated that they had sent the due exemplars, and a few even tried to give a degree of proof. Dietrich Berlachin the Elder from Nuremberg showed his privilege from Emperor Maximilian II dated from 1568, had previously turned in his catalog, and had not printed anything new since then. Moreover, he provided evidence that he had sent his due exemplars to the imperial court, to one “Herr von Plawen.”449 The case was likewise with Peter

Pirna, a printer from Basel. He also claimed a general privilege from Emperor Maximilian II from

1568 along with three special privileges from 1559, 1561, and 1565. He told commissioners that he

447 28 December 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, fol. 16r. “Geruinus Calenius, der Rechten Licentiat, unnd des Rhats daselbst, hat uffgelegt generale privilegium, quondam faelicissimae recordationis, Ferdinandi Romani Imperatoris inuictissimi, concessum haeredibus Quentelianis, ab anno 1560, dessen er sich beneben den Erben gepraucht. Ist ein gedruckte Copia ubergeben, sampt einer Verzeichnuß, was seidher Fasten Meß von Inen gedruckt worden. Sol zum forderlichsten die Exemplaria an die kayserlich Cantzley, oder gen Speyr dem kayserlichen Fiscal uberschicken.”

448 Ibid.

449 Ibid., fol. 19r. “Dietrich Berlachin Erben, zeigt ein Privilegium Maximiliani Imp. generale, datum anno 1568. Hatt zuvor sein Catalogum ubergeben, nicht newes gedruckt. Zeigt an sie haben die gepürliche Exemplaria an kayserlichen Hoff, zum Herren von Plawen uberschickt.”

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had sent three exemplars of each privileged book to “Dr. Crato” at the imperial court.450 While I cannot confirm von Plawen’s identity, it was likely that the latter was Dr. Johann Crato von

Krafftheim, the emperor’s personal physician, who was personally named in documents related to imperial privilege-granting and was thus known to be involved as a patron for certain applicants.451

Privilege-holders understood that calling upon a specific individual, preferably well-placed at the imperial court, not only eased the process of acquiring a privilege in the first place, but also served as suitable evidence of compliance during encounters with post-publication censors.

The commissioners’ attitudes to this proof are difficult to gauge from the report. If they harbored doubts about the authenticity of the evidence, they kept those doubts to themselves.

There may have been clues to their beliefs embedded in the verbs used to describe the alleged delivery of due exemplars, although we should not overstate the quality of such parsing as

“evidence.” In some instances, the commissioners modified their account using the verb zeigen, which implied that a printer “exhibited” evidence in support of his claim to have sent exemplars to imperial authorities.452 The commissioners used the same formulation to assert that a given printer had not only claimed but had presented proof of an imperial privilege in the first place, by exhibiting either the original privilege or an authenticated copy. This formulation therefore gave the strongest impression of the commissioners seeing or believing that a printer had sent his exemplars as otherwise alleged. The weakest expression of confidence came from other instances in which the

450 Ibid., fol. 21r. “Petrus Perna, zeigt privilegium generale Maximiliani Caes. datum anno 1568. Item drey specialia de dato 1565. / 1561. 1559. Sagt er hab zuvor aller bücher drey / Exemplaria ad Doctorem Cratonem gen Hoeff geschickt, auch / sein Indicem librorum ubergeben.”

451 MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 141. Gerhard Eis, "Crato von Crafftheim, Johannes," in Neue Deutsche Biographie 3 (1957): 402-403, accessed 06 March 2015, http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ppn119440067.html.

452 28 December 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, fol. 19r. See the above reference to Dietrich Berlachin the Elder, who “showed” (zeigt) that he sent his exemplars to the imperial court.

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commissioners noted that a given printer “says” (sagt) he sent his exemplars to the imperial court.453

In others instances, the commissioners stated flatly that a given printer “has sent his exemplars to the court,” typically without reference to additional proof being either asked for or provided.454 The extent to which the commissioners were willing to take printers at their word was thus an open question.

Printers occasionally offered reasons why they could not give the Commission proof of their compliance. The Commission observed that several printers claimed to have delivered their exemplars to the imperial court, but had received no confirmation (recognition) in return. Georg

Willer, the famous printer from Augsburg, displayed his general privilege from Emperor Maximilian

II from 1576, valid for ten years, to the commissioners but explained that, although he “has sent the due exemplars to the court,” he nevertheless “still has no confirmation.”455 Johannes Gymnicus from Cologne possessed a privilege from reigning emperor Rudolf II, which he presented to the

Commission, but he had not obtained confirmation of his exemplars’ receipt.456 The report also revealed that major printers, particularly those from abroad, sometimes did not attend the fairs in person, sending representatives in their stead who did not know the state of their masters’ business, or who had neglected to bring the required materials. Christopher Plantin, whose printing firm in

453 Ibid., fol. 19v. “Caspar Behem, zaigt generale Privilegium Maximiliani Imp. datum Spirae, anno 1570. Super libris Catholicis: item aliud speciale, uber des Reichs Abscheidt, unndt waß denen anhangt, Datum Spirae anno 1573. Hatt zuvor sein Catalogum ubergeben, unnd waß er newes gedruckt gen Hoeff geschickt, als er sagt.”

454 Ibid., fol. 16v. “Arnoldus Milyus…zeigt ein generale privilegium Ferdinandi Imperatoris, datum Anno 1560, hatt die Exemplaria gen hoeff uberschickt, auch ein catalogum ubergeben.”

455 Ibid., fol. 18v. “Georg Willer, zeigt generale Privilegium Divi Maximiliani Caesaris, ad annos decem, Datum anno 1576. Hatt die gepurliche Exemplaria ghen hoeff geschickt, hat doch kein recognition, zeigt an er hab seiner bucher Catalogum die vorig mess ubergeben.”

456 Ibid., fol. 17r. “Joannes Gymnicus hatt ein privilegium vonn Ewer kayserlichen Maiestat, welches Er zuvor uffgelegt, auch die Gepuer gen hoeff geschickt, hat doch kein recognition, sol noch ein Catalogum ubergeben.”

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Antwerp was among the most productive and significant in the early modern world, “was not present in Frankfurt but turned over a catalog through his attendant.”457 Outfitted with a catalog but not with evidence of (apparently claimed) privileges, the Commission warned Plantin’s associate that “he should display his privilege at a future fair, and complete his due exemplars for the Imperial

Chancery,” which suggests that Plantin’s copies remained not only unsent but also unprinted.458

Heinricus Stephanus, printer from Geneva who had previously handed over his proof of privilege and catalog, did not personally attend the fair in 1579, and “his attendant cannot say whether or not he sent the books to the court.”459

It was clear that checking for privileges and organizing the collection of the exemplars was a significant part of the Imperial Book Commission’s duties, as evidenced by the preeminence of these concerns in the interview questions. In fact, one could reasonably argue that privileges and exemplars together formed the core of the Imperial Book Commission’s obligation, being named in every imperial mandate from the reign of Emperor Maximilian II to the reign of Emperor Ferdinand

III. No other facet of the Commission’s responsibilities received the same consistency of emphasis.

Yet, although they asked for evidence of them, checking on privileges was not a source of much controversy or activity on the Commission’s part. As mentioned earlier, the process of confirming potentially specious claims would have required investigative powers, as well as the energy, resources, and motivation to wield those powers effectively, that the commissioners did not possess,

457 Ibid., fol. 22v. “Christophorus Plantinus, ist nicht zu Franckfort gewesen, hat durch sein diener ein Catalogum ubergeben.” Close study of the Plantin firm is possible because its records, unlike many other printing firms of the period, are comprehensive and dutifully preserved. See Léon Voet, The Golden Compasses: A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Officina Plantiniana at Antwerp (Amsterdam: Van Gendt, 1969-1972).

458 Ibid. “Soll kunfftige mess sein Privilegia zeigen, unnd die gepuerliche Exemplaria zur kayserlichen Cantzley fertigen.”

459 Ibid., fol. 27r. “Heinricus Stephani Typographus, hatt sein Privilegia unnd Catalogum uffgelegt zum andern mal, ist personlich nit hie gewesen, kan der diener nit anzeigen, ob er einige Bücher gen Hoff geschickt oder nit.”

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judging from the reports. In fairness, in the majority of instances, it would have been impracticable to engage in that kind of follow-through; three censors could not mount an efficient or effective patrol of fair-attendees’ claims, much less twice a year, considering there were approximately one- hundred (at the fall fair in 1579 at least) bookmen in attendance from across the Empire and

Europe. Being a member of the Imperial Book Commission was not a full-time position, regardless of whether they were imperial appointees or representatives of the Frankfurt city council. The main imperial appointee, and the one with the broadest official power simply by virtue of his other position, was the procurator of the Imperial Chamber Court. The procurators remained connected with the Imperial Book Commission throughout the period, being addressed by name and position in the imperial mandates for the commission. From the outset in 1579, the procurators tended not to make the journey from Speyer for the fairs. Instead, local representatives were appointed, drawn from the ranks of Catholic clerics at St. Bartholomew’s or St. Leonhard’s in Frankfurt.

The impulse for precise action regarding privileges was generated externally, when there was a specific problem that required redress. The Imperial Book Commission was asked to intervene in disputes over privileges. These directives tended to come from the Imperial Aulic Council, as rival claimants or aggrieved privilege-holders contacted the Imperial Aulic Council in Vienna, which oversaw the imperial impressoria and adjudicated conflicts upon request. The Imperial Book

Commission did not have well-defined judicial powers of its own, at least with regard to privileges.

Even though the record is incomplete (for reasons unknown to me), I have found no instances of the Imperial Book Commission discovering or otherwise initiating an investigation into an allegedly fraudulent imperial print privilege.460 Imperial disdain for the forgery of privileges was an important

460 By “incomplete” I am referring to the fact that Visitation reports of the kind in 1579 we have been discussing are not a consistent feature of the records. There are enough of them to establish a pattern of activity and show the nuances of 231

feature of the imperial mandates for the commission and informed its institutional identity.

Significantly, however, the mandates did not recommend normative procedures for identifying fraudulence apart from the repeated-observation that a good start had been made, and the commission should keep it going. This meant the emergence of a procedural pattern characterized by questioning bookmen, inspecting their wares, and comparing present claims with previous records. The commission’s approach and the records it generated were haphazard and contributed to institutional amnesia, by which imperial censorship authorities were frequently foisted by their own petard.

Conflicts with Bookmen: Resistance to Exemplars

Although the development of tensions between the Imperial Book Commission and the

Frankfurt city council has been a mainstay in historical studies of the Commission (to which we shall turn in a moment), there is evidence that the execution of its main duties vis-à-vis exemplars was a serious source of friction with other parities as well. Namely, when it came to the collection of exemplars, the Commission found itself precariously positioned between other imperial authorities, on the one hand, and recalcitrant bookmen, on the other hand. The failure to collect and deliver exemplars was a point of contention between Vienna and the commissioners in Frankfurt, particularly as the tide of the Thirty Years’ War turned against the imperial party in the 1630s, when

Swedish forces occupied Frankfurt, and an already-listless stream of exemplars dried up almost entirely. The ongoing conflict was surely to blame for the paltry sum of exemplars in those years, because under those conditions it was hardly business-as-usual for both the Frankfurt fairs and the

procedure, but not enough to trace subtle changes over time. I suppose it is possible that records for activities not discussed with Vienna, or which lend nuance to the reports to Vienna, may be in Frankfurt. As a colleague of mine at the University of Arizona was fond of saying in Seminar, “An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” But, I suppose, anything is possible in records one does not possess, so caution is warranted. 232

Commission. Yet it appeared that once the Commission lost its already delicate purchase on exemplar collection, it struggled to regain it thereafter, much to the chagrin of onlookers in the imperial capital.

A string of correspondence concerning the lack of exemplars coming from Frankfurt circulated in the years between 1638 and 1642. Writing in June 1638 to Emperor Ferdinand III, the imperial librarian observed that, even though “several years have hence passed” since the

“inconveniences” (Ungelegenheiten) precipitated by the Swedish incursion into Frankfurt between 1631 and 1635, it remained that, even years later, “absolutely no books whatsoever have been delivered.”461 Ferdinand III wrote sternly to the presiding imperial book commissioner, Johann

Ludwig von Hagen, in response. The collection of due exemplars, he said, both for new books and for those making their first appearance at the Frankfurt fairs, as well as their delivery to the imperial library, was a policy well-established by Ferdinand III’s “father and imperial forebears” (Herrn

Vattern unnd andern Unnsern Verfahren ahm Reich Römischen Kaysern).462 The emperor showed his willingness to give the Commission the benefit of the doubt, acknowledging that the dangers of the war with Sweden were disruptive for everyone, and that no books whatsoever had come to the imperial library from anywhere in the Empire, “even though many and various privileges have been granted” during that time.463 Regardless, the time had come for the Commission (with Frankfurt’s

461 18 June 1638, Letter from the Imperial Librarian Wilhelm Rechberger to Emperor Ferdinand III, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 58-59; here fol. 58r. “Wan aber allergste käyser, schon viel Jahr her, wegen der großen im Reich schwebeden kriegs ungelegenheiten, ia sicher deß Khönigß in Schweden, einfall in den Khönigische Reich, gantz nichts von büchern alhero geliefert worden.”

462 18 June 1638, Letter from Emperor Ferdinand III to Imperial Book Commissioner Johann Ludwig von Hagen, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fol. 60; here fol. 60r.

463 Ibid. “Wan Wir nun von Unnserm Hoff Bibliothecario unnd lieben getrewen Wilhelm Rechperger in underthenigkeit bemuhtet werden, wie daβ nun von vielen Jahren hero, wegen der…gefehrlichen Kriegs leutten, und seither des Königs Schweden einfall in daβ Heyl. Reich gantz nichts von Büchern gelieffert, gleichwohl aber viel unnd underschiedtliche Impressoria ertheilt word[en] seint.” 233

assistance) to put its shoulder back to the wheel: The emperor ordered Hagen to collect the backlog of exemplars (hinderstendige Exemplaria) and demanded that henceforth the Commission meet its twice-yearly obligation to send the exemplars “properly and orderly” (richtig unnd ordentlich eingeschickt werden).464 The records do not indicate an immediate reply from Hagen. Instead, he attested to his efforts to send exemplars two years later in 1640 in a letter to the imperial councilor and secretary,

Johann Soldner.465 Thereafter, the record fell silent again, to the apparent annoyance of Emperor

Ferdinand III who, in 1641, repeated his demands from 1638 with the pointed observation that

Hagen had failed to answer for himself at that time.466

Hagen responded quickly with a letter to the Emperor that was simultaneously apologetic and defensive. Times were very trying because of the Swedish invasion and the corresponding fact that the roads were not safe, making the collection and delivery of books fundamentally

464 Ibid. “Alß bevehlen Wir dir hiermit genedigst, du wollest nit allain alle dergleichen hinderstendige Exemplaria, darüber kayl. Privilegia ertheilt, und welche sonst bey der Franckforter Messen gehörter massen zum erstenmahl vorgelegt und feilgehalt worden…sondern auch darob sein, damit dieselbe hinfuhren von einer halben jahrs Meß zur andern jedermahls richtig unnd ordentlich eingeschickt werden, zue wie Wir dem zum solchem und dem Rath zu Frankfurt…alle obrigkeitliche assistenz zu leisten, hiebey zugeschrieben haben.”

465 28 September 1640, Letter from Imperial Book Commissioner Johann Ludwig von Hagen to Imperial Councilor and Secretary Johann Soldner, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 66-67.

466 25 February 1641, Letter from Emperor Ferdinand III to Imperial Book Commissioner Johann Ludwig von Hagen, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 72-73; here 72r. “Wan Unß von die hierauf einige antwort nicht erfolgt, geschwiegen das von Zeit deß Schwedischen einfahls ins Heil. Röm. Reich biß anhero, daß geringste gelieffert worden, und gleichwohl von weillandt Unserm in Gott allerselligist ruhenden Herrn Vattern, Christmildesten angedenckens, sowohl alß Unß selbst die Zeit hero viel underschiedliche Impressoria ertheilt worden. Hierumb so bevehlen Wir dir hiemit nachmahls genedigst, daß du nit allein mit allen Fleiß darob sey, damit alle unnd jede dergleichen hinderstendige exemplaria dem herkommen gemeß beygeschafft, unnd von denen Buchtruckern, unnd Buchführern wie breuchlich auf Ihren Costen, ausser Mauth unnd Schäfflohn, zuvorberürter unserer Hoff Bibliothec unverlengt gelüffert, sondern auch ins Künfftig von einer halben Jahres Meß zur andern ordentlich angeführt werden, massen Wir dan zu solchem endt dem Rath zu Frankfurth dir hierin auf erfordern die hilffliche Handt zu bietten heibey genedigst zugeschrieben haben, und seint herauf deiner gehorsamisten verrichtung, unnd umbstendtlichen berichts…auf dem fahl auch von ein: oder ander einige, exemplaria weren eingeschickt worden, zu wessen handen solche liefferung beschehen seye.”

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problematic.467 This much the emperor had repeatedly granted already. However, Hagen asserted that the emperor’s current aggravation was due to misunderstanding and miscommunication. Hagen alleged to have responded to the emperor’s missive from June 1638 in August 1638 by sending a letter to the imperial vice-librarian.468 Not only had he responded promptly, but he had also taken swift action to ameliorate the situation. In early October 1638, Hagen deputized Wolfgang Endter, printer from Nuremberg, to send that year’s books to Vienna. According to Hagen, he could prove that Endter had indeed sent the books to Vienna by providing a copy of the shipping manifest along with a letter from the imperial vice-librarian, dated 9 March 1639, which confirmed the books’ receipt. With Endter’s manifest and the vice-librarian’s letter, which he enclosed, he could give proof of his prior obedience.469 His compliance with imperial wishes was ongoing. He had gathered the due books with the assistance for the Frankfurt city council at the Easter fair, and was keeping them at St. Leonhard’s, where he was deacon, until such a time as he felt it safe enough to transmit them to Regensburg, where the court had relocated for an imperial diet.470 Given the haphazard nature of record keeping regarding who had, and who had not, delivered exemplars to the imperial library, it was conceivable that the Commission collected and sent exemplars that went unrecorded

467 15 March 1641, Letter from Imperial Book Commissioner Johann Ludwig von Hagen to Emperor Ferdinand III, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 4, fols. 74-77; here 74r. “An incursione succorum hucusque pauci, eique exigui valoris traditi sunt libri. quia itinera minime tuta, & uix aliqui Bibliopolae cum libris & testes, seuere exegi extantes libros, collectorumque librorum, ut & sumptuum per me necessario factorum designationem…”

468 Ibid. “Insuper ad mandatum Caesareum 18 Junii 1638 mihi transmissum: Eodem modo quo nunc 24 Augusti 1638 humillime respondi, supra dicto…Vicebibliothecario.”

469 Ibid. “Et statis 7 Octobris 1638 Wolfgango Endter Civi Bibliopolae Norimbergensi Libros in vunovase compactos (quorum designationem de novo hisce litteris inclusi) Francofurti solui & tradidi: quod vas cum libris Viennam deuenisse ad Imperialem Cancellariam testantur litterae praefati…Joannis Michaelis Metziger vicebibliothecari ad me datae 9 Martii 1639.”

470 Ibid. “Ab eo tempore collectos, propter pericula viarum, in Archivo Sti Leonhardi custodivi; quos Deo Dante, cum omnibus libris quos colligere, iuuante (more suo optimo) Senatu Francofurtensi, hisce nundinis Paschalibus, potero cessante periculo, fidelissime Ratisbonam transmittam.”

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and unacknowledged. Already in 1579, printers complained that they must have sent their exemplars into the void, because they never received confirmation (recognition) of receipt. Moreover, again evident as early as the records in 1579, printers were instructed that they could submit their exemplars at some future date to one of several places, either the Commission itself in Frankfurt, the

Imperial Chancery in Mainz, the Imperial Library in Vienna, or the Imperial Chamber Court in

Speyer. How well these institutions communicated with one another about receipt of due exemplars is an open question in need of analysis, but Hagen’s difficulties in the late 1630s and early 1640s suggested these institutions were not reliably communicative. This state of affairs created a significant loophole for printers and publishers who possessed the shrewdness or motivation to exploit it, while simultaneously creating a headache for the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt.

The Empire’s bookmen were well possessed of an impulse to avoid free exemplars, even though they generally welcomed the protection of print privileges that made free exemplars necessary. The Commission was repeatedly beset by sandbagging bookmen, who resented imperial exemplar policies deeply. Not long after his problems with Emperor Ferdinand III, Hagen grumbled to the Archbishop of Mainz about the lack of cooperation among the fair’s attendees. He asked the archbishop for an electoral mandate to supplement his imperial one, thereby expressing an implicit hope that bookmen might be coerced into cooperation by the gathering weight of authority, on the one hand, and that the gathering imperial pressure might be relieved, on the other hand.471

471 28 September 1642, Letter from Imperial Book Commission Johann Ludwig von Hagen to Archbishop Anselm Casimir of Mainz, HHStA MEA BKzF 1, convolute 1, fol. 3; here 3r. “Peto humillime ut Archiepiscopalis & Electoralis Vram Celsitudo dignetur mandatum Electorale in patenti mittere direstum ad omnes Bibliopolas, cum signillo Electorali munitum, ut illud possim infinnare per Notarium & testes omnibus Bibliopolis, & primo Senatii. Condonet statum Rei librariae, cum debita humilitate…Sacra Caesarea Maiestas Dno Fiscali & mihi mandatum scepius & iterato dedit, divisim & coniunctim ut de Privilegiastis exigamus quattuor Exemplaria: de unoquoque nouo non privilegiato, unum, mittamusque Viennam. Necesse esset in Electorali mandato ponere, an tantum Moguntiam, & non Viennam amplius, debeant mittere tum libros Privilegiatos, tum non Privilegiatos; Alioquin mandato Caesareo, timeo inhaerebunt: & sic nec Viennam nec Moguntiam mittent.”

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Occasionally, when they were not silently ignoring their obligations, the Empire’s bookmen protested how burdensome the practice was, especially after the number of due exemplars increased.

In his 1642 correspondence with Archbishop Casimir, Hagen was evidently bracing himself, because it appears that Vienna was pressuring the Commission to start collecting four exemplars of privileged books and one free copy of all unprivileged books. The inconsistency of the records combined with the perpetual incompleteness of collection data to create a remarkably hazy picture of how many exemplars the Imperial Library required of privileged books at any given time. It seemed that the imperial government had attempted to raise the number of due exemplars to four in

1625, at which time protestations had apparently forced imperial authorities to relent. Hagen, who was commissioner in 1625, recalled the difficulties in a letter to Archbishop Casimir in 1642. Hagen attempted to explain why he had not yet circulated the mandate concerning privileges and due exemplars. Although there were overlapping causes for the delay – namely, that he did not have time to have the necessary number of copies made and distributed – Hagen strongly suggested that he was hesitant to invite the “indignation of the masses” again as he had in 1624-1625.472 In that year, the city council of Cologne had written directly to Vienna against the action and, Hagen opined, “I am afraid they may do the same thing now.”473

Hagen referred to an incident in 1625, when Cologne’s city council circumvented the

Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt and forwarded the collected gravamina of the city’s

472 12 October 1642, Letter from Imperial Book Commissioner Johann Ludwig von Hagen to Archbishop Anselm Casimir of Mainz, HHStA MEA BKzF 1, convolute 1, fol. 9; here 9r. “Insuper, ob brevitatem temporis, Exempla mandati Impressa non potui habere: ideo Legendum Bibliopolis Originale notarius Bibliopolis praebuit: ut Instrumentum insinuationis (quod humillime mitto) demonstreat. Anno 1624 Eandem habui solus difficultatem, ratione Sacrae Caesaeae Maiestatis, quam cum indignatione multorum, summo tamen cum labore meo & meorum (taceo Expensas Vesturarum, & mercedum ad 800 F huc usque, qui necdum, proch dolor a Sacra Caesarea Maiestate, licet promissum, refusi) Anno 1625 Deo laus superavi.”

473 Ibid. “Licet Bibliopolae, Senatus Coloniensis & alii Viennam scribendo / contra agere conati sunt: Et timeo ne idem iam faciant.”

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bookmen to Emperor Ferdinand II. Frustrated with a proposed increase of exemplars from three to four, the bookmen of Cologne responded with a petition that complained bitterly about the toll that free copies took on their trades. Their gravamina included twenty-four points of contention.

Foremost among them was a rather detailed explanation of the exorbitant cost of printing and portaging books, alongside an argument about how an increase in the number of free copies exacerbated their troubles. They already had to contend with the costs of materials, instruments, and tools; they had to consider demands for quality; they needed to account for the varied costs of transporting their books to Frankfurt; and finally they dealt with myriad fees, tolls, and tariffs paid to enter Frankfurt and participate in the fairs.474 All of this compounded with the cost of supplying free copies of their books to the Imperial Library. The unstated assertion was that the price of doing business with the emperor was too high, considering that imperial print privileges were not a requirement in the same way that the other expenses were. Printers could not avoid buying and maintaining paper, ink, presses, type, and the various other accouterments required for the trade.

While they might forego the fairs, which many did for various reasons over the years, for those with pretensions to establishing and maintaining European- and Empire-wide trade networks, attendance offered opportunities to offset the costs of transporting and storing wares in Frankfurt.

It is worth noting that the Cologne gravamina objected to free exemplars for reasons with which bookmen everywhere could agree in principle. The necessities of the trade did not vary widely across Europe. The Cologne bookmen took those necessities for granted, and focused instead on the avoidable burden they faced with regard to imperial exemplar policies. They argued that, viewed from a wider perspective, these policies were not only unreasonable but also aberrant.

474 28 March 1625, RHR BKR2, convolute 2 (1625-1627), fols. 21-26; here fol. 22r and 23r.

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The monarchs of other countries had not mistreated their bookmen so egregiously, they noted.

Why would the emperor wish to encumber his printers more than the rulers of Spain, Italy, France, and the Netherlands, especially when the emperor and his “highly estimable and praiseworthy”

Habsburg forebears (hochgeehrte Vorfahren und das hochlöbliche Haus Österreich) were more sympathetic than other “potentates, princes, and lords” (mildigkeit uber andere Potentaten, Fürsten und Herren)?475 It made no sense, they argued, for a skilled and privileged trade such as printing to be taxed more demandingly than unskilled trades and their unprivileged products.476 It was impractical for books, essential tools for learning and vehicles for truth, to suffer under the weight of added expenses when they should be kept as affordable as possible, observing that costs were passed along to consumers at the point of sale.477 In these ways, the Cologne gravamina advocated the preservation of the status quo (if not an overhaul of the current system) for the benefit of bookmen everywhere.

There were signs, too, that immediate self-interest partly motivated the petitioners from

Cologne. Previous emperors, they alleged, had foregone the collection of exemplars even when they had incrementally increased their number, and had generally been more accommodating than

Ferdinand II.478 This assertion is unsubstantiated in the archival records for the Imperial Book

Commission and frankly seems unlikely, considering the enormous emphasis placed on collecting exemplars under every emperor from Rudolf II to Ferdinand III. It was possible that that previous emperors had made discrete arrangements with Cologne in the past, which would not be reflected in the records for the Imperial Book Commission. Before the gravamina officially began, the document

475 Ibid., 22r-23v.

476 Ibid., 22r.

477 Ibid.., 23v.

478 Ibid., 22r. Points 9 and 10 of the gravamina.

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had a prefatory note from the mayor and city council of Cologne. In the note, they subtly questioned the wisdom of straining relations with loyal adherents of Catholicism.479 The first point of the petition reminded emperor of their obedience, which suggested that the bookmen looked upon the exemplars less as a fair exchange for the protection of their rights than as an unwarranted punishment, an abuse of their faithful obedience.480

The so-called “German Rome,” Cologne was the only major imperial free city to resist the

Protestant Reformation, meaning that Cologne remained arguably the most significant Catholic printing center in the Empire.481 The city’s staunchly Catholic identity aligned with the confessional persuasion of the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt, which was headed by Catholic clerics from its founding. Confessional identification may have inclined Cologne’s attendees at the fairs toward compliance with the Imperial Book Commission more readily than representatives from

Protestant cities, although this is difficult to prove given that confessional affinity did not guarantee allegiance and easy cooperation. Yet, at the very least, confessional identity did not present the same potential barrier to cooperation that it did between Protestants and the Imperial Book Commission.

Like many imperial cities, Cologne was fiercely protective of its privileges and prerogatives, as evidenced by its fraught history with the Archbishop of Cologne, and a desire to placate the emperor and his agents was influential to, but did not solely determine, its corporate decision- making.482 In order to smooth its relations with the Imperial Book Commission, it is possible

479 Ibid., 21r-21v.

480 Ibid., 22r.

481 R. W. Scribner, “Why was there no Reformation in Cologne?”, in Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (London and Ronceverte: The Hambledon Press, 1987): 217-241.

482 Ibid., 240-241. Scribner’s thesis consists in the observation that, perhaps borrowed from his notion of the essentially local nature of censensus building and the formation of public opinions, “The acceptance of the Gospel was always an individual event, a personal conversion, but in its totality the Reformation was as much a social as a religious 240

although by no means certain, that Cologne had a special dispensation either with the emperor or with the commissioners themselves. This could explain why they felt particularly aggrieved by the rise in due exemplars, or why they at least felt comfortable airing their grievances with the imperial government directly. There is no record of bookmen from Protestant cities sending a collective petition to the emperor in protest of imperial privilege or exemplar policies at this time, although secondary historical studies suggest that Protestant authorities had a history of displeasure with imperial regulatory policies at the fairs and suspected confessional motives in the requirement of free copies.483

Confessionalism and Imperial Print Privileges

While the Religious Peace of Augsburg bound imperial institutions to a degree of confessional neutrality, such that imperial institutions dominated by Catholics like the Imperial Book

Commission or the Imperial Aulic Court could not brazenly discriminate against Lutherans, there was evidence of Catholic favoritism. Confessional identity alone did not bar an individual from applying for or receiving privileges. Non-Catholics received privileges both before and after the

Religious Peace of Augsburg. This practice was rendered tolerable before the Religious Peace with

phenomenon. It was brought about not simply by a mounting aggregation of individual convictions, but because it struck roots in communal and corporate forms of society. In Cologne the Gospel could find no institutional footing, and the structure of social control was equally unviable. Thanks to government pragmatism and the minor influence of humanism, private conviction was for a while possible, but it could become neither a public nor collective mentality. In the long run the weight of social control was therefore decisive, for it did not allow the social space for a Reformation movement to appear. In this regard the failure of the Reformation in Cologne was as much a product of the urban environment as its success elsewhere.”

483 MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 138-139. According to MacLean, the electors of the Palatinate and Saxony complained to the emperor in the early seventeenth-century that “the imposition of a requirement to supply not only two copies of books bearing Imperial privileges for legal deposit to the Book Commission but also one copy of any new book put on sale at the fair or in the bookshops was motivated by the desire of the Jesuit order to obtain books free of charge for their educational institutions.”

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the inclusion of a clausula religionis, which forbade explicitly anti-Catholic works.484 Under Emperor

Rudolf II, however, a clausula religionis was reinserted into privileges granted to non-Catholics, specifying yet again that “the aforementioned books contain nothing that is scandalous or damaging to the orthodox Catholic religion or to the constitutions of the Holy Roman Empire.”485 Non-

Catholics applying for a general privilege were occasionally denied printing rights to certain genres, typically those given to anti-Catholic abuse, which might explain why Calvinist printer Andreas

Wechel from Frankfurt was granted a general privilege in 1574 with the stipulation that he not publish theological or historical works under the privilege.486 Otherwise, printers and publishers who had produced anti-Catholic books suffered rejection.487

The Imperial Aulic Council sometimes complicated the application process for imperial print privileges when non-Catholics were concerned. In 1571, Girolamo Zanchi, a subject of the Calvinist

Count Palatine Frederick the Pious, applied for an imperial print privilege for a theological work on the doctrine of the Trinity.488 Even though the Religious Peace did not expressly protect Calvinists,

Zanchi’s patron and lord, the Count Palatine, avowed that the work was acceptable in terms that embraced the spirit of the Religious Peace: Zanchi offered a persuasive defense of the doctrine of the Trinity against the heresy of Arianism, which every Christian church rejected in common.489 The

484 Ibid., 144.

485 Cited in Ibid.

486 Ibid., 140. Unlike privileges for specific titles, general privileges obviated the requirement to submit copies of the book for pre-publication review to the imperial chancery.

487 Ibid., 148. In note 51, MacLean cites the example of Nicholas Bassée from Frankfurt, who apparently had an application rejected for this reason in 1582 even though he had received imperial privileges previously. MacLean does not specificy the reason for rejection at this point.

488 Ibid., 141. The title of the work was De tribus elohim, aeterno patre, filio, et spiritu sancto.

489 Ibid. 242

imperial chancery was unmoved. It refused to forego pre-publication review, in apparent spite of a letter of support from an elector, and said in reply “let him show us the book.”490 In the meantime,

Zanchi solicited the support of a figure at the imperial court, the aforementioned Dr. Johann Crato von Krafftheim. On Crato’s recommendation – not the Palatine Elector’s – Zanchi’s work finally received its privilege in 1572, more than a year after his initial application.491 Crato, trained in theology in Wittenberg, a member of Luther’s household, and close associate of Philipp

Melanchthon, was a trusted physician of emperors Ferdinand I, Maximilian II, and Rudolf II. In that capacity, he became an important advocate for Calvinists at the imperial court.492 His vote of confidence was required to break the gridlock in the imperial court for certain Calvinist authors, pointing to the fact that the system of review for privileges could be complicated for them in ways it was not for others. It was apparent that letters of approval from local officials and powerful princes were not always good enough to secure the imperial imprimatur.

Pre-Publication Censorship in Practice

The extent to which imperial suspicion of local authorities extended to pre-publication review is unclear. Certainly imperial law expected local authorities to review all printed works and attest to their acceptability. This expectation was formalized for the Imperial Book Commission.

According to the protocols of 1579, printers and booksellers coming to Frankfurt needed to show

490 Cited in Ibid.

491 Ibid., 141-144.

492 The fact that Crato’s support went to two Italian-born Calvinist refugees, Girolamo Zanchi in Heidelberg and the above-mentioned Pietro Perna in Basel, is an interesting correlation in itself, and one I cannot yet account for in my own research.

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that their books, privileged or not, had been subjected to pre-publication censorship and had received approval from local authorities. According to imperial thinking, books possessing an imperial privilege were de facto acceptable and required no additional verification of pre-publication review, but books without an imperial privilege “should provide nothing less that a certificate from their Magistratu ordinario that the books were printed with foreknowledge and by the permission of antecedent censorship.”493 Very few of the bookmen interviewed and recorded in the report for

1579 brought documentation from their local authorities. For those bookmen whom the commission recorded as having provided evidence, it is unclear whether it was offered voluntarily, or whether the commissioners had singled them out from the others for questioning on the matter.

Of the twelve bookmen for whom prior approval from local authorities was noted, the only definite relationship between them was that they all lacked an imperial privilege; although it should be noted that the commission left the status of approbation unremarked upon for many others who also lacked an imperial privilege. For example, the notation for Georg Baumann from Erfurt read, “has no privilege, turned over a catalog, attached here,”494 whereas the entry for Christopher Forschauer from Zürich stated that he “has no privilege, turned over a certificate from the council of Zürich, which is attached. Should give his Index in the future.”495 Therefore, lack of an imperial privilege was not the determining factor in whether the commissioners noted a given printer’s compliance

493 13 April 1579, Protocol of the Imperial Book Commission, fol. 4r. “Zum dritten, das Sie die Uhrkunden vonn der Kay. Mayt. Wen mann allergnedigsten Herrn wegen Irer schuldigkeit habender privilegien unnd darüber gedruckter Buch, unnd daß sie Exemplaria derselbigen gehe Hoff geschickt, ufflegen oder do kein keyserliches privilegium derselbigen Buecher…nit desto weniger ein Uhrkhundt a Magistratu ordinario ubergeben sollen daß mit vorwiessen unnd willen unnd vorgehend Censur die Büech sie druckh...bewilligt werd.”

494 28 December 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, fol. 24v. “Georg Nauman, hatt kein Privilegium, hatt ein Catalogum ubergeben, so hie beygelegtt.”

495 Ibid., 22r. “Christophorus Froschawer, hatt kein Privilegium, hatt ubergeben des Rhats zu Zürich testimonium, wie sie beygelegt ist. Soll sein Indicem kunfftig ubergeben.”

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with pre-publication review, as it was indicated it should be in the commission’s own protocols. In fact, a quick count reveals that there were twenty-two cases of bookmen missing an imperial privilege, about whom the commission did not record a certificate from a local authority.

Of the twelve cases for which the status of local review was noted, patterns indicative of relationships prove elusive. Half of the twelve bookmen were foreign, and among these only two actually provided proof of approbation, the above-mentioned Forschauer from Zürich and Johann de Broer from Lausanne (whose certification came from the council of Bern).496 From Antwerp,

Johannes Belleri, Peter Belleri, and Philipp Nucius told the Imperial Book Commission, “The

Inspectors of Books in Antwerp are in exile, and in these disturbances they could not obtain a certificate.”497 Of the six domestic printers and publishers who yielded certificates of approbation, three possessed print privileges from the Elector of Saxony, which apparently passed muster with the commissioners.498 Apart from imperial privileges, the electoral privilege from Saxony was desirable as a proof of authenticity.

The remaining four foreigners, who lacked proof of approval from their local authorities, were not printers, but booksellers and “attendants” (socii) from Lyon and Geneva, respectively. The commission instructed these groups that they “should produce a certificate from their authority” and “were admonished like the others,” the latter of which referred to the fact that the commission’s approach to booksellers and wholesalers was not the same as for printers and publishers, regardless

496 Ibid.

497 Ibid., 22v. “Joannes et Petrus Belleri, haben kain kayserlich Privilegium. Soll ein Catalogum ubergeben, Sagt dass die Inspectores librorum zu Antorff in exilio seind, in his tumultibus se testomonium habere non posse. Philippus Nucius…durch sein Diener anzeigen Er hab kein Privilegium Imperiale. Soll ein Catalogum ubergeben, sagt sonst wie die Belleri.”

498 Ibid., 23r for Martin Heyll from Leipzig; 24r for Samuel Heelfisch and Conrad Ruell from Wittenberg and for the widow of Thomas Rewat in Jena.

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of whether the sellers were foreign or domestic.499 The commission was notably suspicious of booksellers and wholesalers as vehicles for the spread of illegal books and pamphlets. The protocol revealed that the commissioners only needed to do two things vis-a-vis booksellers and wholesalers:

First, ascertain whether they had one or more books that “contradicted or degraded Christian doctrine, Imperial law, or an Imperial estate” and, second, instruct them that selling such books or treatises was strictly illegal and would result in “punishment and disfavor” (Straff unnd Ungnadt).500 It did not seem to matter whether the sellers came from Catholic or Protestant cities. Heinrich von

Nettesheim, Johann Waldorff, and Rupert Fabricius, wholesalers (Buchfurer) from Cologne “were admonished to keep themselves in accordance with the Police Ordinance [1577], of which they promised.”501 Tobias Lutz, a bookseller (Buchhandler) from bi-confessional Augsburg, was made to similarly agree, as were Hans von Deuren, Thomas Drexsler, Willibald Sedelmeyr, and Conrad

Hochsang, booksellers and binders from Frankfurt itself.502 Eventually, the commissioners made recordings in short-hand, writing of Johannes Obri (Vienna), Hans Wagner (Bamberg), Hans

Schlammers (Hildesheim), Matthes Weida (Braunschweig), and the foreign booksellers from Lyon and Geneva, that they “are admonished like the others.”503 Yet only the men from Lyon and

Geneva were asked whether they had a certificate from their local authorities.

499 Ibid., 26v-27r. “Buchhandler, sollen von Irer Obrigkeit testimonia ufflegen unnd Catalogos, sunt admoniti, ut alii. […] Petrus Sanctandreanus, D. Hieronymous Camelinus socii, nullum habent Privilegium Imp. Nec testamonium aliud, nec Catalogos, Ist Ihnen ufferlegt bessern bericht zu thun.”

500 Spring 1579, Protocol of the Imperial Book Commission for the Easter Fair (Fastenmeβ), RHR BKR1, fasc. 1579, 1580, 1590, fols. 32-33l; here 32v.

501 28 December 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, fol. 17r. “Heinrich von Nettesheim, Johann Waldorff, Rupertus Fabricius, seind allein Buch furer, haben kein Privilegia, noch catalogos. Seindt vermandt der polycey ordnung sich gemeß zuhalten, welchs sie auch versprochen.”

502 Ibid., 18v; 20v.

503 Ibid., 25r; 25v; 26v; 27r. 246

Although they did not say explicitly, the commissioners’ suspicion of booksellers ostensibly derived from the same suspicion that marked their interactions with printers and publishers who lacked a privilege; i.e. they were dubious about how well local authorities had vetted these bookmen’s wares beforehand. Unlike printers and publishers, unless they had applied for an imperial privilege, booksellers were not bound to submit to pre-publication censorship, even though officials had theoretically examined the books when they were originally printed. Indeed, in the early modern printing cycle, booksellers were primarily responsible for the circulation and distribution of texts. As a post-publication censorship institution, the Imperial Book Commission was primarily engaged in checking circulation and distribution of books that had slipped through the cracks of pre-publication censorship, which explains their rate of engagement with booksellers and wholesalers rather than printers at the fairs. On the morning of 10 April, the report of 1579 began, the commissioners visited bookstalls and shops, asking to review any new printings or new offerings.504 The inspectors discovered three scurrilous treatises, the first two from Tübingen, and the third from the Palatinate.505 According to the report, exemplars for all three treatises were found among wholesalers.506 In future years, when the Imperial Aulic Council took the initiative on libelous books, they invariably wrote to the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt instructing them to sweep the bookshops and stalls for titles and authors currently under investigation. This invariably led them to booksellers and wholesalers, since the printers in these cases and their locations were already known.

504 16 July 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, RHR BKR1, convolute 1: 1579, 1580, 1590; fols. 7-10; here 7v.

505 Ibid., 8r.

506 Ibid.

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Confessionalism and the Imperial Book Commission under Valentin Leucht

The Imperial Book Commission was a controversial institution among printers, publishers, booksellers, and other censorial authorities. Although, as we have discussed, the Commission attracted the ire of bookmen, local officials, and even imperial authorities because of their enforcement of imperial exemplar policies (albeit for different reasons), privileges and exemplars were not the only major source of the controversy the Commission stirred up. The most serious objections to the Commission’s activities were not so much procedural as confessional: The

Imperial Book Commission was a thoroughly Catholic institution, operating in a Protestant city alongside Protestant authorities, spending a great deal of its time engaging with Protestant bookmen from Protestant cities. There was a palpable sense that the Commission targeted Protestant, anti-

Catholic books for confiscation, while never going after Catholic, anti-Protestant books or pamphlets.507 When the Commission reported illegal books and treatises, which it did with regularity, its commissioners favored brevity, leaving out details of the discovery and information other than an attenuated title, an author (if known), whence the book came, as well as its confessional hue (if not implied by the titles or places of publication). Overwhelmingly, these books and treatises were anti-Catholic polemics. There were the three treatises reported in 1579, for instance, two of which came from Tübingen and were openly anti-Catholic (or at least anti-papal):

Disputation on Multiple and Horrible Popes, Doctors of Idolatry and Disputation on the Antichrist.508 In a separate report attached to the list of bookmen questioned in 1579, commissioner Steinmetz noted that the commission had taken several treatises (sind hiebey ettliche Tractetlin bey verwart) in the course of

507 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 53-54.

508 16 July 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, fol. 7v-8r.

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its inspections.509 Among these books, he explained, were books in Dutch “with unknown printers and authors, which disseminate new errors and sects as well as public blasphemies,” where the reference to the “sects” suggested Anabaptism.510

The Commission’s protectiveness of Catholicism became more palpable as the sixteenth century eased into the seventeenth century, as the Commission alienated the Frankfurt city council and drew the opprobrium of Protestant authorities across the Empire for its pro-Catholic biases.

This sharper turn coincided with the appointment of Valentin Leucht as chief commissioner in- residence in 1597. A great deal of time passed between reports for the Commission in this period.

The last document from the Steinmetz-led Commission came in 1580, and there was nothing more for another sixteen years, when the Commission was on the verge of passing to Leucht, who had already been involved with the Commission’s work before his official appointment in 1597. It is difficult to trace the Commission’s activities and proclivities as they developed between its first years and the appointment of Leucht, the Commission’s most visible and controversial leader in the early modern period. Leucht’s path to the Imperial Book Commission was telling, perhaps, of his eventual role within it.

Leucht was a Catholic theologian, author, and clergyman. Wolfgang Brückner, Leucht’s most recent biographer, pointed out that Leucht was among the first generation tasked to implement reforms mandated by Trent, and his energetic career as an agent of the Counter-

Reformation in the Empire reveals the strategies and activities employed in that direction.511 Little

509 28 December 1579, Report from the Imperial Book Commission, fol. 28r.

510 Ibid. “Zum andern sind hiebey ettliche Tractetlin bey verwart, darunder Bücher inn Niederlandisch Teutscher Sprach, deren drucker unnd auctores unbekandt, darin newe Irthumb unnd Secten disseminirt, auch offentliche Blasphemiae…”

511 Brückner, “Der kaiserlicher Bücherkommissar Valentin Leucht,” 101. 249

is currently known of his early upbringing and education. Leucht was born mid-century (the precise date is unknown) in Hollstadt in the Frankish Saale, at the mid-point between Fulda and Bamberg, fewer than 100 miles east of Frankfurt. Leucht’s immersion into the life of the Church began early.

His family maintained close ties to the nearby Cistercian monastery at Bildhausen, his immediate family making endowments and his extended family working directly for various Cistercian establishments as administrators.512 He spent time at the Jesuit College in Würzburg where he formally commenced his path to ordination in the priesthood, which he attained in 1576. Having served as a “paedagogus” in the Benedictine monastery at Neustadt am Main for two years after his ordination, Leucht transferred to Bernstadt in Oberlausitz (Upper Lusatia), between Görlitz and

Zittau to the north of Prague, in 1578.513 The religious situation in Bernstadt was unsettled.

Bernstadt’s residents had forcibly removed Leucht’s predecessor from his post and installed their own Protestant pastor. After some wrangling, the Protestant pastor was deposed and Leucht installed in his stead, but with similar results as it appeared that the town’s Protestant residents expelled Leucht too.514

By the time he was in his 20s or early 30s, Leucht encountered the rich tapestry of Catholic ecclesiastical life, growing up with Cistercians in Hollstadt, working with Jesuits in Würzburg, and serving at a Benedictine monastery in Neustadt. He had also experienced religious conflagration with Protestants first-hand, having retreated his first priestly post in Bernstadt because of hostile

Protestant townspeople. Leucht became a vehicle for Counter-Reformation as both an agent of the

512 Ibid., 101-102.

513 Ibid., 103.

514 Ibid. See also Anton Ph. Brück, "Leucht, Valentin," in Neue Deutsche Biographie 14 (1985): 368, accessed 01 April 2015, http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ppn122113357.html.

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Church and an author following his relocation to Mainz, where he received his master’s and doctoral degrees at the university. He worked his way up the ranks throughout the 1580s, first as priest in

Protestant Erfurt and then again in Neustadt (Saale). The Archbishop of Mainz named Leucht canon of St. Bartholomew’s in Frankfurt in 1589, which suited Leucht’s burgeoning publishing ambitions; in addition to devotional works, Leucht authored polemics and was commissioned to translate Caesar Baronius’s famous Annales Ecclesiastici into German.515 In 1597, Leucht took the lead of the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt, which was a post that carried the greatest potential influence of all his positions, if leveraged properly.

During his tenure as commissioner, Leucht expanded the Commission’s range of activities and influence, using the obduracy of bookmen and the partialities of other authorities as a bridge to that end. Leucht maintained that the manifestly pro-Catholic approach to his duties was a necessary counter-weight to anti-Catholic sentiment pouring through the Empire’s presses and into its most significant book fair. It was, one could say, a campaign of confessional bias for the sake of confessional balance. While Leucht was undoubtedly a fierce defender of Catholicism and unapologetically inclined in that direction, it would be wrong to allow Leucht to shoulder the weight of that confessional bias alone. In fact, it is key for understanding Leucht’s tenure to acknowledge the plausibility of his arguments about the anti-Catholic persuasion Empire’s print industry and the administration of its censorship. True, the Elector Palatine complained in 1597 that Commission’s fair catalog had classified Protestant religious works alongside Aesop’s fables.516 If true, it may have been indicative of a serious problem to contemporaries. But it must be recognized that the knife cut both ways, insofar as confessional bias marked the catalog compiled by Frankfurt’s Lutheran city

515 Brückner, “Die kaiserliche Bücherkommissar Valentin Leucht,” 129-130.

516 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 54.

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magistrates, begun in 1598, and brought complaints from Catholics too.517 Frankfurt’s city censors, culled from the ranks of local Lutheran clergymen, were not averse to act on their confessional preferences. Local pastor and censor, Nicodemus Ulmer, wrote an extended explanation for his rejection of Jesuit Francisco Suarez’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, in which he dismissed the notion of non-confessionalized discourse out of hand. “This book appears as if it deals only with philosophy and Aristotle’s metaphysics,” he wrote, “but [the author] himself confesses that he understands this in terms of Thomistic theology…and thus he advances the false teaching of the

Roman papacy.”518 The argument held, and the city declared, “the printing of this book in Frankfurt is, for the above-stated reason, forbidden.”519 This was precisely the kind of reasoning and decision- making that elicited Leucht’s ire in its own right, whether justifiable or hypocritical or both. In any event, from the Catholic perspective, it legitimated Leucht’s subsequent efforts to mount a counter- offensive.

Leucht complained bitterly to Vienna about the state of affairs in Frankfurt, proffering a vision of the Imperial Book Commission as a fortress besieged not so much by bookmen chafing at the demands of imperial censorship per se, as by hostile Protestants bent on undermining the

Commission’s legitimate, imperially sanctioned mission of bringing order and upholding the law.

Writing in 1600, Leucht bemoaned the lack of respect shown to Catholicism and the Commission

(and by extension the emperor himself). Leucht wrote that the Commission’s visitations not only uncovered works “detrimental to the Catholic religion” (Nachtheill der Catholischen Religion) and

“demeaning to Your Majesty’s Commission” (zu verkleinerungh E. Röm. Kay. Maytt. Commission), but

517 Ibid.

518 Cited in Ibid., 55.

519 Cited in Ibid.

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more and more frequently encountered “resistance and opposition” (Verhinderungh und Wiederstandt uns begegnet).520 Specifically, the Frankfurt city council had launched unrepentantly confessionalized counter-visitations, led by its own representatives, during the course of which they confiscated

Catholic books without cause.521 For example, Leucht pointed out, the Frankfurt-led commission raided the shop of a Cologne bookman, seizing sixty copies of the book Enchiridion oder kleiner

Catachismus, which was acceptable in every way conceivable under imperial law: It bore the name of the author, the place of production, the name of the printer, as well as the censor’s approbation.522

Not content to seize works already printed, the city’s censors forbade the sale of other Catholic books and generally made life difficult for Catholic bookmen travelling to the city. Leucht testified,

“It is not permitted to print Catholic books, or books dedicated to Catholic potentates,” and that the city council had reserved for itself the right of censorship over all books, even those approved by

(Catholic) authorities elsewhere.523

The city seemed to be working to eliminate – or vastly curtail – the production and circulation of Catholic books in Frankfurt, which inflamed Leucht’s indignation. Suggestions of such efforts predated Leucht’s official appointment as commissioner, and thus the city’s own

520 30 March 1600, Report from Imperial Book Commissioner Valentin Leucht, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1596-1600, fols. 70-79; here 70r. “Demnach im diesher ietzt verschienen Franckfurtischen Fasten Meß, dieses ablauffendten 1600 Jahrs, die Visitation und Inquisition in re libraria, mit dem Buchhandtlern unnd Büchern von unß beiden alß von Eürer Kay. May. verordneten Commissariis, abermalß mit höchstem trewesten Vleiß, volzogen und verricht ist worden, haben Wir ein Werckh befunden, daß zum nachtheill der Catholischen Religion und zu verkleinerungh E. Röm. Kay. Maytt. Commission in lenger ihe mehr, von Meβen zu Messen, verhinderungh und Wiederstandt uns begegnet, und zugefügt wird.”

521 Ibid. “…dieweil nemblich ein Ersammer Rath, alhie zu Franckhurth sich understehet, ein gegen Visitation durch ihre verordtente Advocaten anzustellen, etlichen Catholischen Bücher de facto auß ihren officinis zunehmmen…”

522 Ibid. “…wie einen Cöllnischen Bernhard Molterer gnandt, mit einem buch 60 Enchiridion oder kleiner Catechismus intitulirt darauff doch der Author, locus, Typographus und Censura stehtt…”

523 Ibid., 70r-70v. “Eß wirdt auch alhie kein Catholisch Buch, oder waß nuhr Catholischen Potentaten dedicirt, gedrücktet oder zutrückten bewilligt, wie solcheß mit vierten exemplen kan bewießen werden, und ist ihre meinung daß sie durchhauß allen generalem Censuram, über alle Bücher zuhaben begehen.”

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prejudiced exercise of censorial authority cannot be attributed exclusively to the fancies of a partisan

Catholic censor (Leucht). In other words, the city’s dislike of Catholicism was genuine. After all,

Nicodemus Ulmer, the Lutheran clergyman and censor whose 1598 review of Suarez’s Commentary on

Aristotle’s Metaphysics influenced its suppression by the city council, had written, “It is to be especially considered whether the books of these enemies of Jesus Christ – call themselves what they may – should be printed in a Lutheran city. We pastors know not what to do to prevent this, other than to earnestly beg the Honorable Council to drive these and other such Jesuit writers from the place.”524

To add insult to injury, the fair catalogs over which the Frankfurt city council had assumed control in 1597 due to its annoyance at flagrant abuses of Protestant books, was, according to Leucht, actively excluding “the best and most important Catholic books” (laβen die beste und allermeiste

Catholische Bücher gar auβen).525 Implicit in these complaints was the argument that the Frankfurt city council had violated the spirit of the Religious Peace by undermining the confessional stability it guaranteed. Confessional balance safeguarded harmony and unity in the Empire. The problem consisted in determining what “confessional balance” entailed. Considering the Religious Peace entrenched confessional self-determination as a cornerstone of its arrangement, each side, Lutheran and Catholic, was granted its bias against the other, framing peace as protracted stalemate between inveterate enemies. We can understand how this played out in the late-sixteenth and early- seventeenth century by noting not only Leucht’s objections to the Frankfurt city council’s markedly confessionalized approach to censorship – itself a response to perceived improprieties on the

Commission’s part – but also in Leucht’s recommendations to the imperial government in Vienna.

524 Cited in Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 55.

525 30 March 1600, Report from Imperial Book Commissioner Valentin Leucht, fol. 70v.

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Leucht did not frame his requests to Emperor Rudolf II as extensions of the Imperial Book

Commission’s mandate, but rather as clarifications of imperial censorship law as it applied to the

Commission’s activities in Frankfurt. It was uncertain whether Frankfurt’s Lutheran city council, in targeting Catholic books, printers, and sellers, was violating imperial laws. Leucht noted with discernible astonishment that the city council had asserted its prerogative to censor all books in its city. According to imperial censorship law, and the arrangements made by the Religious Peace, there was nothing terribly aberrant about this position. Frankfurt was not a bi-confessional city and, from the perspective of the city council and its Lutheran clergy, the city’s leaders were free to impede and suppress Catholic works in their jurisdiction without departing from the Empire’s legal framework. But that interpretation depended, Leucht seemed to realize, on assumptions rather than pronouncements. If he could obtain clarification from the emperor, he might be able to derail

Frankfurt’s efforts and improve the Catholic position.

In 1601, Leucht sent Vienna a list of points he wanted addressed in a forthcoming imperial mandate (which he received from Emperor Rudolf II in 1608). First, he requested a confirmation of previously existing censorship laws, linked immediately to the Commission’s mandate. Leucht demanded a notice that “scandalous libels are forbidden in the Holy Roman Empire and should be completely stopped.”526 This was more or less a reminder of the importance of libel prohibition in imperial censorship law. Its purpose in this particular struggle is not self-evident, but we can safely speculate that it would theoretically allow the Commission to continue seizing anti-Catholic polemics discovered at the fairs by categorizing them as libelous. Over the years, the Commission had turned up plenty of offensive, libelous books, treatises, and pamphlet that happened to be anti-

526 20 April 1601, Report from Imperial Book Commissioner Valentin Leucht, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fols. 2-7; here 5r.

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Catholic polemics. Since the Religious Peace facilitated the translation of libel prohibition into a general ban on confessional polemics, this approach made sense. It would permit Leucht and his successors to pursue a selective, confessionally informed campaign against anti-Catholic invectives at the fairs.527

Leucht’s strategy was similar to the ones used against suspected libelers elsewhere, namely against Theodor Thumm and Georg Zeämann. In order to justify direct imperial intervention, one had to show that local authorities had failed to meet their legal obligations. In his complaints about libels, Leucht had made the Frankfurt city council look as if it had shirked its duties under imperial law. Rudolf’s mandate accepted Leucht’s reporting at face value. He lamented that libels circulated with disturbing frequency from one fair to the next, charging the commissioners

to wreak havoc against the great errors coming out of all the fairs, to completely suppress highly-forbidden libels, [to ensure] that no book is printed or distributed in the Holy Roman Empire that was not censored beforehand by the regular authorities in whose territory the book printer resides, and that [no book] is authorized or approved by the same unless on each one the author, printer, and place of publication are affixed without deceit and artifice.528

The implication was that Frankfurt authorities had unsuccessfully stanched the distribution of libels in their city, which was an urgent requirement for every authority in the Holy Roman Empire, especially those that asserted complete authority to censor all books in its jurisdiction, as Frankfurt’s civic magistrates had. The emperor instead granted approval to the Imperial Book Commission to serve as bulwark against the flood of punishable texts. Moreover, it appeared that, by suppressing books that bore all the hallmarks of acceptability under imperial law – i.e. those with pre-publication approval from legitimate authorities, with identifying information clearly provided, that were not

527 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 110.

528 15 March 1608, Mandate of Emperor Rudolf II, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fols. 50-53.

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ostensibly polemical – Frankfurt’s city council had acted indecorously.529 Considering the context in which it occurred, as a response to Leucht’s seven-year campaign, the 1608 imperial mandate can be read as a tacit affirmation of the commissioner’s basic argument that Frankfurt’s city council was presenting a problem for which the only viable solution was to empower the Imperial Book

Commission.

While appeals for the reaffirmation of the Imperial Book Commission’s basic tasks technically addressed bookmen, they carried grim implications for relations with local authorities.

Not content to rest on these points alone, Leucht wanted the emperor also to engage the

Commission’s recent struggles with the Frankfurt city council directly, as a means for clarifying (and thus extending) the boundaries of the Commission’s authority, which had been hemmed in by the city’s magistrates. In the first place, Leucht wanted the fair catalogs restored to the Commission’s control. He argued only that “great impropriety has been noticed” in the fairs’ catalogs of new books and hence they “should be regularly conducted by the commissioners.”530 In the request itself, Leucht was silent on the confessional sparring that had precipitated the dispute. Emperor

Rudolf II did not restrain himself, linking together Leucht’s complaint from 1600 and his request from 1601, observing flatly, “heretofore nothing less than great impropriety has been discovered, namely that many Catholic books are entirely omitted.”531 The emperor responded with a compromise solution. Frankfurt’s city council remained responsible for the fair catalogs. He also

529 20 April 1601, Report from Imperial Book Commissioner Valentin Leucht, fol. 5r. Leucht requested reinforcement on these aspects of imperial law as well, in points three and four: “[3] Das keine Buecher sollen gedruckht werden, oder im H. / Reich distrahirt, Sie seyen dan von der ordenlichen Obrigkeit zuvor censiert unnd verwilliget. [4] Das auf alle Buecher der Auctor, Buchdruckher und / Ortt soll gesetzt, unnd hierinn nichts fraudelenter soll singirt(?) werden.”

530 Ibid., fols. 5r-5v. “Das der Catalogs novorum Nundinarum darinn ietzund große unrichtigkeit gemerckht würdt, von Commissariis ordenlich soll dirigirt.”

531 15 March 1608, Mandate of Emperor Rudolf II. “Dieweil auch bey Verfertigung deß Catalogi nouorum librorum bißhero nicht weniger grosse Unrichtigkeit befunden / ja viel der Catholischen Bücher gäntzlich außgelassen worden…”

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granted permission to the Imperial Book Commission to review the catalogs prior to publication and empowered them to make corrections without interference from Frankfurt’s magistrates.532

This was as far as Emperor Rudolf II went in signaling his willingness to redress Leucht’s grievances with Frankfurt’s city government. The Frankfurt magistrates were not to hinder the

Imperial Book Commission in the execution of its above-stated duties and, in the spirit of cooperation, Rudolf II reminded the Commission of the city council’s obligation to assist them in the execution of those duties.533 Frankfurt presented a unique situation for censorship in the

Empire, which required the city to cooperate with imperial officials in ways others did not. It was true that no other authorities in the Empire were imposed upon as Frankfurt was, expected to brook direct imperial involvement in their system of regulation and censorship, and yet Frankfurt could not assert the same level of independence as other places. No other city in the Empire during this period, as discussed above, could boast of a book fair of international significance on Frankfurt’s scale, drawing scholars, craftsmen, and books from across the Empire and throughout Europe.

Frankfurt had a special relationship with imperial power, notwithstanding its confessional allegiance, as an imperial city, and as the host of imperial elections and coronations. As such, it maintained an imperial collegiate church, St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral, alongside St. Leonhard’s collegiate church, whence the resident imperial book commissioners had come. All of these factors conspired to place the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt in the first place, meaning that Frankfurt could not

532 Ibid. “[…] ist unser gnädigster Will und Meynung daß ehe un[d] zuuor der Catalogis nouorum librorum gedruckt von euch ersehen und nach Notturfft corrigirt werde unnd damit hierinnen von Burgermeister und Raht zu Frankfurt euch keine Verhindernuß beschehe so haben wir bey denselben wie ihr auß dem Beyschluß zusehen allbereit die Notturfft vefügt der Zuversicht es werde euch aller Vorschub und Beförderung von inen erwiesen werden: und damit unsers Käyserlichen Cammergerichts Geheimnussen Relationes und Vota nicht also ohne einigen Unterschiedt ohne unser oder unsers Keyserlichen Cammergerichts Vorwissen gantz Sträfflicher Weiß getruckt und mänigklichen fürgestelt werden.”

533 Ibid. “Wöllen derhalben daß ir fleissig inquiriret, und was ist dermassen befindet mit Hilff Burgermeister und Rahts zu Frankfurt, wo es die Notturfft erfordert, die Confiscation neben weitterer Bestraffung inserespectu fürnehmet.” 258

persuasively assert its independent authority as other cities could. Leipzig, for instance, had the second largest book fair in the Empire, but was less international (trading predominantly in German- language books) and, more importantly, was not an imperial city. The emperor lacked the justification, the authority, and the personnel to establish an imperial book commission to regulate its fairs. Thus, Leipzig’s lord, the Elector of Saxony, could reasonably proclaim his full authority over the operation of censorship in its city in ways Frankfurt’s city council could not. This is not to suggest the city was entirely powerless, but that its independence was uniquely constrained.

Frankfurt was encumbered by its responsibility as an imperial city, answerable directly to the emperor, to protect the emperor’s dignity. It is important to remember that imperial authorities justified nearly every censorial action in the name of defending (if not advancing) the emperor’s interests. Imperial dignity and authority were at stake in every anti-Catholic invective that circulated freely at the book fairs, in every counterfeit imperial print privilege, and in every undelivered exemplar. In this period, every violation of imperial censorship regulations teetered dangerously on the brink of lèse majesté. It was clear enough from Emperor Rudolf II’s mandate in 1608. In writing about forged privileges, for example, the emperor used language redolent of libel, applied unmistakably in this instance to his own person. The mandate reflected the imperial position that piracy was not simply a matter of violating another printer’s intellectual property rights or debasing his reputation as a craftsman. Rather, piratical printers grievously injured the honor and reputation of the privilege-granting authority who, in the case of imperial print privileges, was the emperor.

Printers and publishers presented falsified privileges on the title pages of pirated books to entice unwitting buyers or dupe unsuspecting censors. It was standard practice for privilege-holders to display their privileges and permissions on the title pages of their books, alongside the other identifying information required under imperial law. These were the visible marks of a book’s legality, and a valuable precondition of its legitimacy. They used the words Cum Gratia et Privilegio, 259

which indicated that privilege-holder had produced the book “with the grace and privilege” of the privilege-granter, making it clear that a book’s content, form, and quality had been vouchsafed by the honor of the issuing authority. The former could not be violated without blighting the latter.

Writing of the problem already in 1597 and then repeated in 1608, Emperor Rudolf II bristled with contempt that books were circulating and openly sold which claimed a privilege, but to which “we never granted a privilege” (wir niemals kein Privilegium ertheylt).534 The 1608 mandate maintained that this was an especially pernicious duplicity, since it threatened, through its fraudulence, to both

“afflict our imperial reputation” and “to escape due taxes” (i.e. due exemplars).535

Violating the emperor’s honor was not only a problem for nefarious printers, but had consequences for Frankfurt’s magistrates as well if they continued to hinder the Commission’s activities. The Commission acted on the emperor’s behalf. Obstructionism was tantamount to complicity with the criminals who had defied imperial laws and regulations. In a sense, then, hindering the Imperial Book Commission was equivalent to misleading them with fraudulent print privileges, and no less damaging to the imperial dignity. Leucht had insisted that the emperor should tolerate “neither the Frankfurt magistrates nor those from other places…to obstruct the appointed commissioners from fulfilling their imperial duties.”536 Hence, Rudolf reiterated the city

534 16 March 1597, Mandate of Emperor Rudolf II, RHR BKR1, fasz. 1596-1600, fols. 17-21; here 18r.

535 15 March 1608, Mandate of Emperor Rudolf II. “Dann demnach uns glaubwürdig dieser Betrug etlicher Buchtrucker und Buchhändler fürkommen daß sie auff etliche ihre Bücher diese Wort (cum gratia & privilegio) da doch keines von ihnen gesucht weniger erlangt worden zu trucken sich lassen gelüsten: Welches einem Falso nicht fast ungleich Insonderheit weil sie wöllen dardurch zuuerstehn geben quod praedicta verba sonant, das Word Caesareo aber malitiose außlassen: Under welchem Schein viel ungereumbte Sachen eingeschleifft un[d] in Truck verfertigt werden dadurch sie sich understehen unsere Käyserliche reputation zu laediren, un[d] den gebührenden Taxam zuuerschmählern welches keines Wegs zuzulassen weniger hinfuro einiger Massen zuzusehen oder zu gestatten.”

536 20 April 1601, Report from Imperial Book Commissioner Valentin Leucht, fol. 5v. “Das weder die Franckfurtische, noch anderer Ortten Magistrat, die verordnete Commissarios an Ihren Kay bevelchen verhindern sollen.”

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council’s commitment to assist the book commissioners, whatever their confessional differences, because the commissioners were imperial representatives.

Leucht had pressed the issue slightly past the emperor’s comfort. In the boldest test of the emperor’s willingness to proclaim his authority as imperial sovereign in an imperial city, Leucht wanted Rudolf to order that “Catholic, as well as Lutheran and Calvinist books, should be printed at

Frankfurt.”537 Although it appears innocuous at first glance, closer inspection reveals this as a subtle way of challenging the religious allowances granted by the Religious Peace (cuius regio, eius religio).

The city magistrates had predicated their rejection of Catholic books on the notion that imperial law

(i.e. the Religious Peace) permitted them to decide their city’s confessional identity and determine its religious policies. There was no rule or precedent to suggest that Frankfurt, as a Lutheran city, was obliged to allow the production and distribution of Catholic books in its jurisdiction. Leucht, in asking this of Emperor Rudolf II, invited the emperor to defy Frankfurt on this point. To be clear,

Leucht was not asking the emperor to transform Frankfurt into a bi-confessional city. Rather, he had asked him to acknowledge Frankfurt’s de facto multi-confessional printing community.

The emperor did not oblige. For reasons that are not immediately clear, Rudolf II did not rise to Leucht’s challenge. He opted against forcing an open-printing policy on the Frankfurt city council. He had made clear that, in his acceptance of Leucht’s other points, he considered Frankfurt his city, the commissioners his agents acting to protect his honor, and he was not pleased with

Frankfurt’s confessional gamesmanship.538 The emperor, while supportive, was satisfied that his

537 Ibid. “Das zu Franckfurt sowohl Catholische alls Lutherische unnd Calvinische Buecher sollen gedruckht werden.”

538 15 March 1608, Mandate of Emperor Rudolf II. In the section of the mandate following the solution to the catalog issue, the emperor continued, saying, “We command that you [i.e. the commissioners] seriously and finally forbide all printers, publishers, or booksellers to print, publish, publicly offer for sale, or sell the same [i.e. the catalog] in our city and in our name without our or our Imperial Chamber Court’s express consent and permission by the highest disgrace and punishment” (Als befehlen wir euch daß ihr an under statt unnd in unserm Namen dergleichen ins künfftig ohn außtrücklichen unsern 261

unequivocal agreement with Leucht’s other requests had made this expectation implicit. Leucht had the support of the Imperial Aulic Council. The former offered a legal opinion on his points in 1602.

They showed concern for Leucht’s struggles with the “abuse and interference against the Catholic religion and Your Imperial Majesty’s authority and sovereignty through the council of the city of

Frankfurt.”539 In terms of Catholic and Protestant printing in Frankfurt, the Aulic Council sided with Leucht, observing, “pursuant to the Religious Peace the publication of both Catholic and

Protestant books at Frankfurt should not be hindered, because there both religions are practiced.”540

This perspective, stated so briefly, suggested that the Council regarded Frankfurt as a de facto bi- or multi-confessional city. In short, the opinion of the Imperial Aulic Council embraced Leucht’s sly challenge to Frankfurt’s civic magistrates: If they wished to prohibit Catholic printing, they must ban

Catholicism in their territory, which they were unlikely to attempt. Yet they did not recommend action to the emperor on this front, where they had on others. For instance, regarding Leucht’s seventh point that the Frankfurt city council should be told not to interfere with the Commission’s activities, the Imperial Aulic Council observed with apparent exasperation, “Concerning the seventh point, the same has already been made for the Book Commission in a previous ordinance, which proscription one must now repeat.”541 There was no similar push to announce the decision on

oder unsers Käyserlichen Cammergerichts Consens und Einwilligung zu trucken allen Buchtruckern Führern oder Buchhändlern bey höchster unserer Ungnadt und Straff zutrucken zuführen oder offentlich feil zuhaben und zuverkauffen ernstlich auch endlich verbietet).

539 02 September 1602, Imperial Aulic Council concerning the Request of Valentin Leucht and Resolution on Various Points, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fol. 18; here fol. 18r.

540 02 September 1602, Imperial Aulic Council to Emperor Rudolf II, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fols. 25r - 28v; here fol. 27v. “Also auch ist der achten, dem Religion friden gemäß und solle auch die verfertigung, sowol Catholischer alß Protestirender Büecher zu Franckhfurt deßweniger verhindert, weil alda baiderley Religion exercitia getriben werden.”

541 Ibid. “Belangendt den sibenten Puncten, desselben halben ist in voriger Commission ad inquirendum der Bücher berait verordnung beschehen, welche verordnung man yezt aufs new abermal widerholen mechte.”

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Leucht’s request to address Catholic and Protestant printing directly. In any event, no definitive pronouncements came from the emperor until the imperial diet had gathered at Regensburg six years later.

The archival documents fell silent on this subject until February 1608, just prior to the issuance of the emperor’s mandate in March of that year. Leucht and his fellow book commissioner, imperial procurator Karl Seiblin, commenced a comparatively frenetic letter-writing campaign to secure their requests. A letter to the emperor repeated the 1601 requests with a few alterations that extended the scope of complaints beyond Frankfurt’s boundaries, with the exception of the fair catalogs, and gave the appearance of an Empire-wide conspiracy against Catholicism.

There were so many libels floating around which not only lacked the name of the author, place of publication, and the name of the printer, but which also “are disgraceful to the Catholic religion and completely derogatory to the high Christian and worldly authorities.”542 “In imperial cities everywhere,” they continued, “no Catholic books are allowed to be printed or which are only written for or dedicated to Catholic potentates.”543 These problems, including those confined to Frankfurt, like the catalogs, needed to be addressed, they pleaded, with a new imperial mandate, which they must have expected because they repeated the requests from 1601 nearly verbatim.544 They sent only slightly modified letters to the Imperial Aulic Court and the Imperial Vice-Chancellor.545

542 12 February 1608, Letter from Valentin Leucht and Karl Seiblin to Emperor Rudolf II, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fols. 32-35; here fol. 32v.

543 Ibid.

544 Ibid., fols. 33r-34r.

545 12 February 1608, Letter to the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA, RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fols. 38-40; 19 February 1608, Letter from Karl Seiblin to Imperial Vice-Chancellor Leopold von Stralendorff, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607-1610, 1612, fol. 43.

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Therefore, the Imperial Book Commission’s entreaties were not distant from the emperor’s mind while preparing the new mandate.

Even though the requests themselves had not changed appreciably in the time between

Leucht’s initial pleas and the arrival of Rudolf II’s decision in 1608, the state of confessional relations was uncertain in 1608. The imperial diet at Regensburg in 1608 was fraught with roiling emotions and intrigue. The Religious Peace and its implications for imperial politics hung heavy as a point of contention over the gathering at Regensburg as it appeared that the Empire’s confessions were edging closer to open conflict. For instance, Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, the future

Emperor Ferdinand II, responding to Protestant calls for a confirmation of the Religious Peace, called for a definitive interpretation of the Peace that would require Protestant estates to restore

Catholic Church properties seized since 1552.546 Additionally, the diet was beset by acrimony spilling over from Rudolf II’s handling of confessional conflict in the imperial city of Donauwörth in 1606-7, when the city’s magistrates declined to protect the city’s Catholics from Protestant violence during a religious procession and resulted in Rudolf making the controversial decision to permit Duke Maximilian of Bavaria to occupy the town. At the center of the conflict were the same issues that Leucht had used to entice Rudolf II to action in Frankfurt since 1601: The protection of

Catholic religious rights and interests in a Protestant-dominated imperial city.547 Considering the tensions precipitated by increasingly sharpening views of the Religious Peace, which led to a walkout at the imperial diet, it was entirely possible that Rudolf II did not address Leucht’s most audacious

546 Wilson, The Thirty Years War, 224. This foreshadowed Ferdinand’s efforts at the same during his reign as Emperor, when he passed the highly controversial and alienating Edict of Restitution in 1629.

547 Thomas A. Brady Jr., “Settlements: The Holy Roman Empire,” in The Handbook of European History, 1400-1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, vol. 2, Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Heiko A. Oberman, and James D. Tracy eds. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1995): 349-383; here 370.

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request because it involved a highly divisive issue (i.e. interpretation of the Religious Peace) at the very time when the mandate was drafted in 1608.

Confessionalism in the Empire had escalated at the moment Leucht was pressing for more explicit protection of Catholic interests in Frankfurt. With or without the emperor’s pronouncement on Catholic printing in Frankfurt, this episode and the mandate that ultimately resulted from it made absolutely plain the Imperial Book Commission’s confessional allegiances and outlined, within that framework, its competencies. After 1608, it was officially an imperial Catholic counterweight to civic Protestant interests and activities in Frankfurt. Once each side knew where the other stood, once doubt had been eliminated, and once their roles vis-à-vis each other had been officially circumscribed, the city council and the commissioners settled into a pattern in which conflict was easier to avoid and cooperation easier to pursue. In subsequent years, as Leucht’s long reign inched along, coming to an end more than a decade after the mandate was issued, open conflict with the Frankfurt city council receded into the background of the Commission’s reports. It was not that the Commission had ceased to be controversial with Protestants. Rather, confessional depths had been sounded and charted. The Commission’s visitation reports still included the discovery of anti-Catholic polemics at the fairs, but jurisdictional squabbling with Frankfurt was considerably muted, confined mostly to skirmishes over the fair catalogs.548 Otherwise, the commission’s correspondence focused on checking for privileges, collecting exemplars, and

548 09 March 1609, Visitation Report from the Imperial Book Commission, HHStA RHR BKR1, fasc. 1601-1604, 1607- 1610, 1612, fols. 69-70; here fol. 69r-69v. The commissioners complained that the imperial mandate, issued only a year before, was not only completely ignored but also deliberately undermined with regard to the fair catalogs. Far from helping the Commission, the Frankfurt magistrates, through their representatives, collected and printed the catalog without the Commission’s inspection and revision (alß auch von dem Frankfortischen Magistrat so durch Ire deputierte den Catalogum colligiren und ohne unsern revision unnd mit inspection druckhen). Moreover, the commissioners alleged that the city Senate publicly displayed a counter-mandate (einen Gegenbevelch) in the Buchgasse, which may have explained the total lack of cooperation the commissioners encountered from the bookmen at the fair, where no one apparently delivered indexes of books and no one opened their shops and stalls to them for inspection.

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suppressing libelous books when they found them, a pattern that did not change noticeably with the coming of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618 or Leucht’s death a year later in 1619.

By the time Hagen assumed his place as commissioner, the Commission’s activities had regularized such that shifting external events brought isolated interruptions of a pattern that remained more or less unchanged throughout Hagen’s thirty-five-year tenure. There were a few exceptions born of shifting confessional balances during the first phases of the Thirty Years’ War, when Emperor Ferdinand II and the Empire’s Catholics were at the height of their power and influence. First, and most notably in terms of what we have been discussing, Hagen assumed unilateral control over the oft-disputed fair catalog in 1625 at the exact historical moment when imperial authorities possessed enough clout to settle old scores.549 Second, as imperial authorities became more acutely attuned to anti-Catholic religious invective, they were willing to construe anti-

Catholicism much more broadly, and became eager to pursue Protestant theologians and writers more vigorously than before as seditious libelers, as we have seen.

The Imperial Book Commission undoubtedly had a tumultuous relationship with the

Frankfurt city council, and with the majority Protestant bookmen who attended its fairs and made their homes in and around Frankfurt. The conflicts were mostly, but not entirely, confessional. It was possible to object to the Empire’s regulatory policies and the Commission’s procedures for non- confessional reasons (e.g. Cologne’s bookmen in 1624 discussed above). But, as we have seen, the

Commission maintained a vigorous Catholic identity. The impact of the Commission’s biases on the fairs in not easy to gauge. On the one hand, bookmen and authorities complained about them, and

549 MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 138-139.

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some were known to move their shops beyond the Commission’s reach outside of Frankfurt.550 On the other hand, according to the metric introduced by MacLean, Frankfurt’s fairs witnessed sharp growth rather than steep decline at precisely the moment that Leucht’s strictures tightened on

Frankfurt’s predominantly Protestant Buchgasse. Between 1580 and 1585, 316 titles were prepared for Frankfurt’s fairs, while between 1611 and 1615, the number of published titled jumped to 1,390, and this in the years after Rudolf II’s controversial decisions in 1608 mandate.551 The Imperial Book

Commission, regardless of its pronounced confessional prejudices, did not destroy the Frankfurt book fairs.

The Apostolic Book Commission: Confessional and Political Loyalties Collide

Although the book commissioners worked as official representatives of resolutely Catholic

Habsburg emperors, their professional and confessional allegiances were not neatly symmetrical.

There was undoubtedly a high degree of institutional self-identification. Censors everywhere and at all levels were appointed agents of official power who, in order to be effective, shared a common cause with their overseers and colleagues, something they believed was worthwhile, and which they endeavored to realize together.552 Perspectives could be shared without being identical, however, and common ends obscured diverging means. The Religious Peace functioned to keep the Empire’s

550 Ibid.

551 Ibid., 4.

552 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 34. She says, “The role of censor was typically an honorary, unpaid appointment. This had several consequences for the book trade. First, those who took on the job would of necessity require sufficient income from other sources to support themselves. Not surprisingly, those censors known to us in this period were often drawn from the professional elites and wealthier strata of urban society. Presumably, these men shared the concerns and prejudices common to their station and identified most closely with the priorities of the government that they served. This institutional identification is significant, for the lack of clear guidelines left urban censorship laws to be filtered through the subjective understandings of its enforcers.”

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peace for as long as it did, against all expectations and odds, because it called the Empire’s quarrelsome and hostile estates to rally around universal Christian values (fraternity, charity, neighborliness) and shared political interests (peace, harmony, stability). Catholic and Protestant authorities, while sharing these values and interests, departed one another’s company in how best to achieve and preserve them. Disagreement on the best means for achieving a common end was not limited to relations between rival confessions, but was also a feature of relations within each confession. Catholics disagreed with other Catholics, and Protestants with other Protestants. The book commissioners and the emperor did not always share an agenda.

Friction between the Frankfurt commissioners and imperial authorities in Vienna is an underappreciated feature of the Imperial Book Commission’s history in the early modern period, overshadowed by confessionalized confrontations with Protestant authorities. We have already noted imperial annoyance with the Commission at its failure to collected and deliver due exemplars.

This was ultimately caused by widespread dissatisfaction with imperial policies, which the imperial court declined to acknowledge, choosing instead to blame the commissioners. This episode led to long-term suspicions about Hagen’s suitability as an imperial representative. In 1648, the Imperial

Aulic Council officially appointed another commissioner to work alongside Hagen in Frankfurt, perhaps to usher Hagen out of office.553 Hagen’s new colleague and eventual replacement was

Ludwig von Hörnigk, a once-Protestant physician who had converted to Catholicism in Vienna in

1647 and became book commissioner in Frankfurt only a year later.554 Hörnigk was a stark departure from the two longest serving members of the Commission, Leucht and Hagen. Hörnigk was the only book commissioner who was not a Catholic theologian and had been a Protestant for

553 02 October 1648, Opinion of the Imperial Aulic Council, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 5, fols. 20-21.

554 Teichmann, “Hörnigk, Ludwig von," in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 13 (1881): 157, accessed 16 March 2015, http://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ppn122259645.html?anchor=adb. 268

the vast majority of his life. Hörnigk was also local, more or less. Born in Darmstadt, he was educated in medicine in Gießen and law at Marburg. He earned his doctorate in medicine in

Strasbourg and then worked as a counselor in electoral Mainz until his conversion brought him to imperial service. These features of his personal and professional background made him the likely choice to succeed Hagen, who at sixty-eight years old in 1648 was perhaps nearing the end.

Compared to Hörnigk, Leucht and Hagen were outsiders in Frankfurt. Neither came from

Frankfurt or its environs and both had been lifelong Catholics and were trained theologians. There was at least potential that Hörnigk would enter into the ebb and flow of the Commission’s activities, ingratiating himself to Frankfurt’s Protestants as he did, without the contentiousness of Leucht’s tenure and minus the distractedness of Hagen’s. It is difficult to avoid reading Hörnigk’s selection as an official commentary on the Commission’s work for the previous half-century. With the Thirty

Years’ War coming to an end at the same time the Imperial Aulic Council decided on Hörnigk’s appointment, officials in Vienna had signaled a change in the imperial approach to confessional relations in Frankfurt and the management of the book fairs there. Hagen was in danger of becoming a living relic of the Commission’s past.

In a bid to remind officials of his loyalty and value, Hagen laid out his bona fides in his correspondence. In a letter to Hörnigk, Hagen was at pains to forestall any questions his new colleague may have about his competency. Apparently under the belief that Hörnigk’s appointment was the latest criticism of his collection of exemplars dating back to 1638, Hagen detailed his collection for both privileged and non-privileged books from the autumnal fair of 1638 through

1648.555 Apropos of nothing obvious, Hagen set about conflating his professional and personal

555 15 April 1649, Letter from Johann Ludwig von Hagen to Ludwig von Hörnigk, HHStA RHR BKR2, convolute 5, fols. 33-34; here fol. 33r. 269

histories for his new colleague, Hörnigk. He evidently believed that criticisms of his work as commissioner were personal, and he found it necessary to defend his honor along with the reputation of his family. Since 1608, the year Hagen began working unofficially for the Imperial

Book Commission under Leucht, he had served “the lords of the august House of Austria resolutely and faithfully in this Commission.”556 Since 1615, he hastened to add, he had conducted himself with constancy in the face of danger (pericula), and had done so at his own expense, for his pleas for

(financial) assistance had been ignored.557

Johann Ludwig von Hagen was not the only member of his family to make sacrifices for the

House of Austria. Many of his relatives had served in the emperors’ military campaigns over the years. Captain Johannes Daniel von Hagen had stood among the citizens of Freiburg im Breisgau,

“who had died while fighting vigorously and faithfully” (qui acerrime & fidelissime pugnantes occubuerunt).558 Other relatives, Francis Peter von Hagen and his brother, Johannes Ludwig von

Hagen, had recently “fought in the service of the august House of Austria in Belgium and were taken captive by the French” (reccenter nepotes mei in Belgio Franciscus Peterus ab Hagen Captaneus, &

Joannes Ludovicus ab Hagen eius frater in eodem servitio Augustae Domus Austriacae pugnantes a Gallis capti).559

The highest profile member of his family to meet his end in service to the imperial majesty was

Johann Nicholaus von Hagen, “beheaded by the tyrant Wallenstein at Prague.” (Pragae decapitatus a

Tyranno Wallenstein).560 The inclusion of this piece of family trivia is interesting if only for the fact

556 Ibid.

557 Ibid., fols. 33r-33v.

558 Ibid., fol. 33v.

559 Ibid.

560 Ibid. 270

that Wallenstein had executed Johann Nicholaus von Hagen for cowardice, for the general had witnessed Hagen abandon the field at Lützen in 1632.561 Following the battle, Wallenstein retreated to Bohemia, where he poured out his wrath on Johann Nicholaus and others. Hagen did not mention the circumstances of Johann Nicholas’s death. He relied instead on lingering ill will for

Wallenstein, “the tyrant” and traitor, who met his own ignominious end a few years after purging his officer corps in Prague. Hence Hagen elevated to martyrdom a relative who had been disreputably put to death, offering it as an example of faithful imperial service in conjunction with his own.

Why did Hagen feel motivated to recount his pedigree to Hörnigk? Why was Hagen compelled to extend his self-defense from exemplar collecting to a defense of his and his family’s service to the House of Austria? Why, in other words, was Hagen so keen to demonstrate his loyalty to the imperial majesty without discussing his Catholic credentials? He was clearly less secure about his standing with the emperor than at any prior point in his career. Hagen’s status as a faithful servant of imperial interests had been compromised for reasons other than his poor record with exemplars, I suspect. It is possible Hagen had put his allegiance to international Catholicism ahead of his responsibilities as an imperial servant. When the closing of the Thirty Years’ War had dawned, Hagen’s troubles with the Imperial Court came immediately to a head, and he became noticeably desperate to illustrate his loyalty. This was not coincidental. There came a point at which the strident Catholicism of the imperial book commissioner became a liability for Emperor

Ferdinand III. The Frankfurt book commissioners, Leucht and Hagen, self-identified with two closely related but separate corporate bodies: the Holy Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic

561 Richard Brzezinski, Lützen 1632: The Climax of the Thirty Years War (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2001), 91. 271

Church; there were not only imperial appointees but also members of the Society of Jesus and servants of the papal Curia.

During the age of confessionalization, secular states harnessed the potentially polarizing tendencies of confessional commitment, meaning that subjects and citizens increasingly identified with their princes and lords both politically and confessionally. What happened if confessional commitments conflicted with the interests of the political state? While theoretically an issue for everyone, the problem was more exaggerated for Valentin Leucht and Johann Ludwig von Hagen, who did not compartmentalize their functions as Catholic theologians, on the one hand, and imperial book commissioners, on the other. Rather, they served two masters as book commissioners, working simultaneously as imperial book commissioners for Vienna and as apostolic book commissioners for Rome. In the many years stretching from Leucht’s appointment to

Hagen’s death, the Empire’s book commissioners in Frankfurt held dual appointments as apostolic book commissioners in the service of the Roman Curia. Adding to the intrigue was that, from the outset, the commissioners’ engagement with the Holy See was a secret, kept not only from

Protestant officials but also from imperial authorities. The dual appointment created an opportunity for conflict of interest, which was muted for much of the Imperial Book Commission’s existence but had moved to the foreground as imperial authorities pushed for an accord with Protestant powers in the 1640s.

The Roman Curia had an interest in the imperial book commissioners from the beginning.

The papal nuncio in Cologne contacted the first commissioner in Frankfurt, Johann Steinmetz, about providing information about the goings-on in Frankfurt.562 The occasional cooperation of the

562 Becker, “Die Berichte,” 425.

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first Frankfurt-based imperial book commissioners apparently yielded a desire for a permanent apostolic representative in the city, someone who would answer to the nunciature in Cologne, which in turn passed along relevant information to Rome. Leucht was the first permanent apostolic book commissioner. Rome’s chief interest in the Frankfurt book fairs consisted in acquiring as many copies of the fair catalogs the commissioners could, in order to assist the compilation of the Index of Prohibited Books.563 Rome also used the presence of the commissioners to gain advantage in the book market: Under Steinmetz, Pope Sixtus V managed to have the Roman edition of the

Septuagint printed in Frankfurt before other planned editions.564 Leucht, arguably more than

Steinmetz, was interested in enlarging the Catholic presence in Frankfurt and at the book fairs, as we have seen. He worked closely with the nuncios in Cologne and Prague in particular to communicate information to, and receive orders from, the papacy and the Congregation for the Index and

Inquisition. Leucht worked assiduously to make the book commission into an agent of the Catholic

Counter-Reformation, rather than a passive instrument of it. In fact, the idea for the appointment of a permanent Apostolic Book Commission in Frankfurt was likely Leucht’s; having been asked to suppress the writings of an ex-Jesuit, Paelo Beni, Leucht stated that he could be more effective if he possessed a papal mandate granting him apostolic authority.565 Leucht received his appointment from Pope Clement VIII in 1605, and the office of apostolic commissioner was confirmed by Pope

Paul V in 1606.566 The Apostolic Book Commission remained a force in Frankfurt into the

563 Ibid., 425-426.

564 Ibid., 426.

565 Eisenhardt, “Die kaiserliche Aufsicht,” 82-83.

566 Becker, “Die Berichte,” 427.

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eighteenth-century, with most imperial book commissions drafted into the position of apostolic book commissioner. Hörnigk, a layman, was the exception.567

The dual appointment can be used as damning evidence of the commissioners’ unrelenting anti-Protestant bigotry, a verification of their true mission to demolish Protestantism one book fair at a time. However, it is unlikely the two overlapping commissions – apostolic and imperial – would have shocked or surprised Protestant officials, who already held the commissioners in low esteem and regarded them with deep suspicion, although it may have amplified their rancor. As we have seen, the imperial book commissioners, from Leucht’s tenure in particular, made no secret of their confessional prejudices. After Rudolf II’s mandate especially, both imperial and local officials were resigned to the idea that the Commission served as a counterweight to Protestant influence in

Frankfurt. Even if the commissioners were acting with direct orders from Rome, they did not possess the authority to impose Rome’s will on Frankfurt’s book trade without justifying their activities in terms of protecting imperial interests and upholding imperial law. As secondary literature on the Commission indicates, the archival records in Rome for the commissioner’s activities confirm that Rome worked with the Commission to suppress undesirable anti-Catholic books. In the periodic reports sent to the Curia about the many libelous books and caricatures the

Commission had confiscated or attempted to suppress, it was clear that, even though they were all identified as anti-Catholic, a fair number of them were written by Catholics rather than Protestants.

For instance, Leucht sought the suppression of writings by the apostate Bishop of Dalmatia, Marcus

Antonius de Dominis, along with an anonymous book, Supplicatio ad Imperatorem, Regem et Principes

Super Causis Convocandi Concilii Generalis contra Paulum V Pontificem, which may have been written by

567 Eisenhardt, “Die kaiserliche Aufsicht,” 84-85. 274

Martin Becan, future confessor to Emperor Ferdinand II and Hagen’s mentor at Mainz.568 Hagen too suppressed the French Catholic historian and politician, Jacques-Auguste de Thou, at the prompting of Rome because his Historiae sui Temporis offered unfavorable vignettes of the papacy.569

The Apostolic Book Commission endeavored to impose a specific Catholic identity on the Empire’s book trade, one in line with the Curia’s expectations. Catholics, too, conflicted with Rome’s

Tridentine sensibilities. Thus, it is too simplistic to view the Commission’s cooperation with the

Curia as a singular struggle to overcome Protestantism, since it struggled to shape Catholicism as well.570

Rather than judging the significance of the Apostolic and Imperial Book Commission(s) by its fraught relationship with Protestant authorities in Frankfurt and throughout the Empire, it is

568 Becker, “Die Berichte,” 427. The Munich Digital Library believes that Martin Becan is the author of the treatise. See http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10201016-1 (accessed 17 March 2015).

569 Ibid., 445-446. On the preparations for a German printing of the work at Frankfurt, see MacLean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, 30-37. For more on de Thou and his legacy as an historian, see Anthony Grafton, “The Footnote from De Thou to Ranke,” in History and Theory (1994): 53-76 and The Footnote: A Curious History.

570 In this sense, the Apostolic-Imperial Book Commission embodied the debate subsequent historians have had regarding the nature (and nomenclature) of the Catholic Counter-Reformation / Catholic Reformation / Tridentine Catholicism. See John W. O’Malley, Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). In this sense, too, it should be born in mind how the particularism of the Reichskirche resisted the centralizing and universalizing tendencies of Tridentine reforms, giving an alternative model of confessionalization in which Catholic identity was cultivated and maintained in resistance to top-down reform agendas. See in particular Marc R. Forster, “The Elite and Popular Foundations of German Catholicism in the Age of Confessionalism: The Reichskirche,” Central European History 26 (1993): 311-325. He argues that intermediary institutions of the Imperial church checked Tridentine Reforms. Especially in places where secular and ecclesiastical power was comparatively weak and the collegiate chapters and monasteries were comparatively strong, reforms were resisted for political, institutional, and religious reasons. The institutions of the Reichskirche had accrued numerous privileges, exemptions, and rights that made them rich, lax in their discipline, and disinclined to accept Tridentine reforms that attempted to discipline their behavior and enforce conformity with episcopal oversight (i.e. centralization and universalization). Their close ties with local communities also predisposed them to be conservative about what they regarded as Trent’s devotional innovations, although like the laity they picked and chose what suited them. This is important for discussions of the Imperial Book Commission to the extent that, in saying its commissioners were agents of the Counter-Reformation, it should be kept in mind that they had to work assiduously to shape the particularist tendencies of German Catholicism in addition to staving off Protestants. In brief, there is some evidence in the secondary sources that other Catholics regarded the Book Commission warily for its Jesuit-dominated composition and its Trindentine agenda. It certainly offers a more complicated picture of the Imperial Book Commission than reducing its struggles to Catholics vs. Protestants.

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much more intriguing to consider it from the perspective of imperial authorities. The deep Catholic commitments of the commissioners had been unproblematic – if not highly desirable – for the imperial government for much of the Commission’s existence. Even if the existence of the

Apostolic Book Commission had remained a mystery to imperial authorities, the activities of its commissioners were not secret. The books targeted by the commission for suppression still had to pass through imperial oversight. There was a high degree of overlap between the books in the

Roman archives and the titles singled out in the Imperial archives for the Commission. It bears repeating: The commissioners could only justify the prohibition of anti-Catholic books because they violated one or more facet of imperial censorship laws. In his attempt to have de Thou’s German edition of the Historiae suppressed in 1624, Hagen did not dwell on the fact that the text appeared on the Roman Index in 1609 for its blasphemies against the papacy. Rather, he insisted that prohibition was warranted because it defamed the memory of Emperor Charles V.571 The wider success of these efforts, beyond individual cases of confiscation carried out by the commissioners themselves, was halting and uneven. For instance, Leucht was unable to secure the ban against the anonymous pamphlet Supplicatio ad Imperatorem. Unable to use the Commission’s influence to secure an official imperial ban, Rome instructed the papal nuncio in Cologne to buy as many copies of the treatise he could find in order to prevent its broader circulation.572

There were cases of confiscated and suppressed books reported to the Roman Curia in which the commissioners claimed to have taken initiative on behalf of the papacy, usually against anti-Catholic invectives written by Protestants. In 1627, Hagen wrote to Rome about the suppression of writings by Theodor Thumm, the Lutheran theologian in Tübingen who had evoked

571 Becker, “Die Berichte,” 445-446.

572 Ibid., 427.

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the Antichrist in several treatises.573 Thereafter, in 1630, he reported on the release of Georg

Zeämann, noting that Zeämann was under the obligation never to publish anti-Catholic writings against and implying that he (Hagen) had played a role.574 Hagen and the Imperial Book

Commission had not taken the initiative in either of these cases. Instead, the Imperial Aulic Court had requested that the Commission act in cooperation with the Frankfurt city council to enforce its prohibition of Thumm and Zeämann’s texts. Hagen had not lied about his involvement in these cases – he had indeed confiscated Thumm and Zeämann’s works in Frankfurt – but he exaggerated his role in these cases by giving the impression that he had taken the initiative himself when there is no evidence in the imperial archives of his doing so. Recall that Hagen had refrained from arguing to the Imperial Aulic Council in 1625 that the Curia had placed de Thou’s Historiae on the Index in

1609, arguing instead that the Frenchman had belittled Emperor Charles V. Knowing that the imperial government had to maintain the appearance of confessional neutrality, Hagen could not use the Index of Prohibited Books as a reason to act. He therefore elided the confessional implications with the political and social consequences of allowing the Historiae to circulate openly. Hagen likewise obscured certain features of his actions from the Roman Curia when reporting to them.

When he confiscated and suppressed writings like Thumm’s and Zeämann’s, for instance, he had not done so for the sake of the papacy per se, but in order to protect and uphold the Religious Peace, as demanded of him by his imperial overseers.575 As Rotraut Becker has argued, there was no merit for Hagen vis-à-vis the Roman Curia in upholding the Religious Peace. But writing to them about

573 Ibid., 446.

574 Ibid., 448.

575 Becker, “Die Berichte,” 444.

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his defense of Catholicism against heretics resulted, at least once, in improved remuneration.576 So long as the interests of his overseers, Catholic and Imperial, did not contradict one another, he could use his activities as evidence of his allegiance to each, respectively.

Hagen’s writings to the Curia were similar in theme and tone to his correspondence with the

Imperial Aulic Council. Not only did he report on life in Frankfurt, on his interactions with bookmen and city magistrates, he also bragged about his successes and complained about his troubles. Hagen tailored the details to suit his audience. As Becker noticed, in his letters to the

Curia, Hagen did not neglect to mention his boundless zeal for the Catholic Church, its ecclesiastical hierarchy as well as its secular leaders.577 At the same time, he never tired of reminding them about the difficulties of his office, the risks he took as the lone Catholic ship on a roiling Protestant sea, and the costs he incurred in his defense of Catholicism. These were accompanied by requests for an additional benefice, or an exemption from residency requirements at his benefices outside of

Frankfurt, or for more money.578 His zeal for the Edict of Restitution was at least partially motivated by his desire to have church lands and properties confiscated from Protestants awarded to him as sources of additional income.579 Although his financial situation was not as dire as his concern about poverty indicated (he was scolded for stinginess several times),580 he nevertheless faced serious expenses for which he did not receive compensation. He was never reimbursed for

576 Ibid., 444-445.

577 Ibid., 441.

578 Ibid., 440-441; 461.

579 Ibid., 462.

580 Ibid., 464.

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shipping exemplars to Vienna, for example, which had cost him 1043 florins by 1648.581 The money given to him by the Curia, on the other hand, covered only the production of the Indices librorum

Catholicorum, a separate fair catalog of Catholic books begun under Hagen’s watch, which he was expected to publish himself at his own expense.582 He was probably also deprived of the full income of his benefices due to the interruptions of the Thirty Years’ War, especially the Swedish occupation of Frankfurt.583

His activities as imperial and apostolic book commissioner overlapped considerably. As mentioned, for most of his tenure Hagen avoided serious conflicts of interest. He did not keep his efforts on one front secret from the other, even though he withheld or augmented his motivations for action depending on whom he was trying to impress. The possibility for a conflict of interest had been relatively low, considering Catholic and Imperial interests aligned for lengthy stretches of

Hagen’s time with the Commission. The potential for problems emerged, however, when the Thirty

Years’ War drew to a close and imperial authorities compromised with Protestant powers for the sake of peace. Between 1646 and 1648 factions emerged within the Catholic camp on the permissibility of negotiating with heretics.584 At the Westphalian Peace Congress, the papal legate

581 Ibid.

582 Ibid.

583 Ibid., 465.

584 In fairness, the divisions in the Catholic camp predated the negotiations in the 1640s. See Robert Bireley, “The Peace of Prague (1635) and the Counterreformation in Germany,” in The Journal of Modern History 48 (1976): 31-70. Bireley offers a reasonable summary of the divided opinions of moderates and militants over imperial policies regarding concessions to Protestants, even for the sake of peace. Led by Lamormaini, the militant position came to the fore following White Mountain and sought to press Catholic advantage in order to root out Protestants entirely. The high- water mark for this position was the Edict of Restitution and its defense, the Pacis Compositio. Once the political suicide of this adoption was complete, however, and the need for peace was more pressing than ever, the militants nevertheless stuck to their claim that making concessions to Protestants was unthinkable. The Peace of Prague represented the effective end of the militant position in the Empire, setting the scene for the remainder of the War as a chiefly Bourbon- Habsburg contest and checking the influence of the papacy over concessions with Protestants for the necessity of peace, which anticipated the Peace of Westphalia and the debate that embroiled Hagen at that time. 279

Fabio Chigi advocated the suppression of a work by Abbot Johannes Caramuel y Lobkowitz, a favorite of Emperor Ferdinand III. The treatise in question defended the emperor’s right, as emperor, to negotiate the return of Catholic lands to Protestants in order to secure peace, which meant arguing that the emperor’s regalian responsibility to ensure peace and stability in the Empire outweighed his confessional obligations to Catholicism. This was a response to a previously published treatise condemning the Protestant terms of peace in this regard as essentially impermissible for a Catholic ruler.585 Although Elector Anselm Casimir of Mainz blocked the treatise’s initial appearance in Frankfurt, his death several months later opened the door for the resumption of the treatises production, this time as part of a larger work entitled Sacri Romani Imperii

Pax licita demonstrata (1648).586 Unable to rely on the elector’s authority to halt production, the papal nuncio in Cologne asked Hagen to intervene against the book. This was the most obvious conflict of interest to emerge for the Commission: There was no reason to believe that Hagen could obtain an imperial mandate to suppress a book defending the emperor’s right to negotiate peace with

Protestants without betraying his imperial loyalty.587 There was, in other words, no way for him to justify his request as a defense of the emperor’s dignity and reputation.

While the imperial archival record remains silent on Hagen’s involvement in the suppression of Caramuel y Lobkowitz’s treatise, the timing was certainly suspicious. The Imperial Aulic Council happened to appoint a new co-commissioner – who shared little in common with Hagen and possessed good credentials vis-à-vis service to the Empire – at the exact time Hagen was complicit

585 Ibid., 456.

586 Ibid., 457. The treatise was published in Frankfurt by Johann Gottfried Schönwetter (VD17 23:289148U). It was published again in 1649 in Vienna by Matthäus Cosmerovius (VD17 14:017453T).

587 Ibid.

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in an attempt to block production of a book asserting Emperor Ferdinand III’s imperial dignity and defending him from accusations of betraying Catholicism. Admittedly, the record only indicated that the Council was still displeased with Hagen’s collection and delivery of exemplars. Yet the episode was already a decade old at that point, and Hagen had a host of reasonable explanations. It is highly speculative yet entirely plausible that imperial authorities had questioned Hagen’s strict loyalty to the Empire for other reasons, viewed retrospectively, but refrained from acting on their suspicions until Hagen became engaged in something like a conspiracy. Despite the fact that not much has been uncovered about Hagen’s personal background (compared to Leucht he is virtually unknown), we know that he had international connections through his family. He was not definitively tied to the Empire, in other words. His place of birth is unknown, but there are indications he hailed from Luxembourg. His dissertation at Mainz was concerned with current affairs in the Spanish Netherlands, an interest he apparently maintained throughout his career.588

His interests are explicable partially by the assumption that he was attentive to events in his homeland. Additionally, his mother tongue was probably French rather than German. Hagen’s correspondence with the imperial authorities was almost exclusively in Latin, which departed from the norm, as the other commissioners of German extraction corresponded with Vienna in German.

Moreover, Crato Paltheonius, the municipal registrar in Frankfurt, observed as late as 1627 how poorly Hagen understood German.589

Hagen had used his family’s service to the emperor as evidence of his own loyalties. It seems fair, then, to point out other familial connections that tended in the opposite direction. His most notable relative was Peter Ernst von Ouren, to whom Hagen referred as his cognatus

588 Ibid., 433-434.

589 Ibid., 434-435.

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(kinsman).590 Ouren was a shady figure in the world of seventeenth-century international affairs, not known for his deep commitment to imperial interests. A diplomatic agent of the Elector of Trier from 1633-1634, Ouren was the elector’s diplomatic agent when secret negotiations were held between Trier and Cardinal Richelieu.591 Ouren’s gifts as a diplomat and propagandist ingratiated him to his superiors, and after travelling to Paris in 1634 he continued on to Rome to confer with

Pope Urban VIII and some cardinals at the Curia.592 The French connection extended beyond

Hagen’s kinship with Ouren. During the bulk of Hagen’s time in office, his reports were directed to members of the powerful Barberini family, who occupied places of prominence in the Curia, especially during the pontificate of Urban VIII (born Maffeo Barberini) from 1623 to 1644. Among

Hagen’s prominent Roman contacts with whom he communicated with was Urban VIII’s nephew,

Francesco Barberini. In 1629, Hagen was keen to trumpet Catholic advances in the Empire to

Barberini, gifting to him an edition of the Pacis Compositio by the Dillingen Jesuits Paul Laymann and

Laurenz Forer that detailed the Catholic interpretation of the Peace of Augsburg and provided the legal justification for the Edict of Restitution.593 Hagen wished to remind Barberini of his own contributions to the view expressed in the Pacis Compositio, mostly by attempting to prevent distribution of the Saxon Augenapfels written by Matthias Hoë von Hoënegg in defense of the

Evangelical interpretation of the Religious Peace. Hagen’s relationship with Barberini is interesting

590 Ibid., 434.

591 Ibid.

592 Ibid.

593 Ibid., 459. For more on the Pacis Compositio see Robert Bireley, “The Origins of the ‘Pacis Compositio’ (1629): A Text of Paul Layman,” in Archivum Historicum Sociatatis Jesu 42 (1972): 106-127; Martin Heckel, “Autonomia und Pacis Compositio: Der Augsburger Religionsfriede in der Deutung der Gegenreformation,” in Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, Kanonistische Abteilung 76 (1959): 141-248; Harro Höpfl, Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c.1540–1630 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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because, like Ouren, Francesco Barberini and his family members in the Curia favored the French, and tried to work deals with Cardinal Richelieu, who worked diligently to undermine the position of strength obtained by the Habsburgs in the 1620s.

Politics in Rome may have contributed – directly or indirectly – to Hagen’s slide into imperial disfavor during the mid-to-late 1640s. When Pope Urban VIII died in 1644, Francesco

Barberini favored the election of Giovanni Battista Pamphili, who became Pope Innocent X. It was unfortunate for the Barberinis that Pamphili was the Spanish candidate and began purging French supporters. Francesco fled to Paris in 1646, where he and his brothers, Antonio and Taddeo, remained in exile under the protection of Cardinal Mazarin until pardoned by Innocent X in 1648.

It is again hard to ignore the timing. Hagen’s patrons at the curia had been ousted at the same time his difficulties were compounding with imperial officials in Vienna. Much of this interpretation depends on whether and how much others knew of Hagen’s activities. Allegedly, the existence of the Apostolic Book Commission was unknown even to imperial officials until the late eighteenth century.594 I have reservations about how well this secret was kept considering how many people were involved over a lengthy stretch of time. In addition to the high-ranking members of the ecclesiastical establishment who knew – the nuncios and perhaps the Elector of Mainz – other ladder-climbing bureaucrats also had knowledge of Hagen’s associations with the Curia. One of

Hagen’s go-betweens in Rome was a man named Cornelius Heinrich Motmann, who served as an agent of various German dignitaries in Rome, in addition to being Hagen’s messenger and transmitter of payments from the Curia to Hagen.595 During the 1640s, Hagen had a side job as representative to the Elector of Trier in Rome and appointed his own agent to serve in this capacity,

594 Eisenhard, “Die kaiserliche Aufsicht,” 82.

595 Becker, “Die Berichte,” 438.

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Johann Augustin Pastorius. Following Hagen’s death in 1654, Pastorius petitioned the Elector of

Mainz to make him Hagen’s successor as apostolic book commissioner (the layman, Hörnigk, could not fulfill the role), proclaiming himself the obvious candidate in consideration of his years of service to Hagen.596 Pastorius did not get the job. However, he lingered under the illusion that he had, sending the customary report on the Commission’s activities after the spring 1655 book fair, congratulating Adrian VII for his accession to the papal throne, requesting payment of his due salary, and signing-off with the appropriate title, officium censoris.597 While men like Motmann and

Pastorius who had responsibilities to important people were undoubtedly discrete, their knowledge of Hagen’s activities and the breadth of the circles in which they comfortably moved may indicate that the Apostolic Book Commission was an open secret among groups with ties to both Rome and the imperial court.

It is possible that these connections were happenstance and that Hagen’s connections with the Curia, and with French supporters within it, played no immediate or direct role in his gradual marginalization in the Imperial Book Commission between 1638 and 1648. Perhaps the Imperial

Aulic Council was simply aggravated with him because of his lackluster performance with regard to exemplars. I have located no definitive proof to the contrary in the archives for the Imperial Book

Commission in Vienna. There is nothing to suggest that Hagen actively undermined imperial interests, or that he did not sincerely considered himself a faithful imperial servant. He praised imperial Catholicism in his correspondence with Francesco Barberini, especially with regard to the

Pacis Compositio in 1629 when it appeared that a massive recatholicization of the Empire was imminent. In 1630, he included Wilhelm Ferdinand von Efferen’s Manuale Politicum, which

596 Ibid., 439.

597 Ibid.

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advocated a stronger imperial monarchy in the Empire to go hand in hand with systematic recatholicization.598 Moreover, he had guided the Imperial Book Commission through the Swedish occupation of Frankfurt with aplomb and energy, preserving the Commission’s hard-fought concessions even while the balance of power was shifting.599 Even if imperial authorities did not know about his extra-imperial connections and activities, or decided not to cite them openly as reasons for their disapproval, Hagen had the misfortune of a long career. He benefitted from

Leucht’s pioneering work in Frankfurt, as both imperial and apostolic commissioner, which ultimately gave him greater influence. Moreover, his career as commissioner commenced during a decade that witnessed the dawn of unprecedented imperial power and Catholic influence. He hitched his professional wagon, in retrospect, to an overly optimistic vision of the future, in which a

Catholic Emperor would consolidate power and recatholicize the Empire. Unfortunately, he could only look on helplessly as the Catholic-Imperial advantage withered and died. His enthusiastic embrace of a strong, universal Catholic monarchy hastened his obsolescence as the Thirty Years’

War ended.

The history of the Imperial Book Commission, and the shifting fortunes of its commissioners, should remind us of the extraordinary complexity of administering and enforcing imperial censorship laws. Although there were certainly deep tensions among Frankfurt’s Lutheran magistrates, the Empire’s Lutheran and Reformed bookmen, and the Imperial Book Commission’s

Catholic censors, this chapter has explored in as much detail as time and space allow the risks of flattening their activities to contests between confessions. The commissioners styled themselves as guardians of confessional balance and harmony, which did not obviate their prejudices but rather, in

598 Ibid., 460.

599 Ibid., 443. 285

their estimation, necessitated them. The commissioners would not have been able to argue cogently in this vein had Frankfurt’s city council not taken an equally partial view of its own responsibilities and privileges as a Lutheran magistracy. Yet, at the same time, as the episode with the Cologne bookmen showed, confessional allegiances were not so absolute that imperial policies, like the collection of free exemplars, went unquestioned. Problems that did not stem from confessional conflict regularly hounded the Commission and hampered its activities. Although the Commission was the sole token of an expanding imperial bureaucracy, it yet lacked many features associated with the ideal modern bureaucracy; its procedures were not well articulated or well organized, its motivations were inconsistent, and its expectations were less-than-transparent. Miscommunication, misunderstanding, and misestimation prevailed among all parties involved. In the final assessment, as Hagen’s experience attested, the commissioners juggled a variety of identities with potentially conflicting claims to their obedience. All was well, or at least manageable, when the demands of these identities existed in relative harmony. But the weight of national, confessional, and personal loyalties could be crushing, especially when historical conditions conspired to bring these loyalties into conflict.

***

The Imperial Book Commission was not an exact reflection of censorship in the Empire because Frankfurt was not an exact copy of book market towns elsewhere. The plight of its commissioners, however, captured the bewildering personal and professional universe censors everywhere had to navigate, although it was probably even more complicated for the commissioners in Frankfurt. The difficulty the Imperial Book Commission encountered in Frankfurt, I suspect, was a reasonable facsimile of the hardship of shepherding the Holy Roman Empire through the

Confessional Age. They were Catholic censors stationed in a Lutheran city, asked to organize the affairs of bookmen who resented the inconvenience, whose duties were based on laws too vague to 286

be helpful and justified in terms of a principle – religious pluralism – everyone found instinctively odious. They dealt with every stage of the early modern communications cycle, from authors, printers, and booksellers, through local authorities in Frankfurt and their own overseers in both

Vienna and Rome. Loyalties were tested at nearly every turn. Hagen presented a clear example of the toll multiple institutional affiliations and self-identities could take, especially on a long enough time line. Leucht was comparatively fortunate that his confessional and political allegiances were never forced into conflict by powers beyond his control. Hagen, by contrast, found his world unraveling in the 1640s, his previous alliances with the Roman Curia and his support for strongly

Counter-Reformation Catholics in the Empire becoming an unexpected liability as the war’s early optimism gave way to stalemate and compromise. In the final assessment, the Imperial Book

Commission was a significant institution because it revealed how censors operated in multiple worlds at once. They were not on the outside of the book trade looking in, but were deeply involved on multiple levels, shaping it in ways more often subtle than striking. 287

Conclusion

This dissertation began with an implicit question: How did imperial censorship operate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Imperial censorship operated by ambiguity, contingency, and subjectivity. First, libel was imperial censorship’s weight-bearing pillar in both theory and practice. Every piece of imperial censorship legislation in the sixteenth century included a prohibition of libel. Every archival record reviewed for this dissertation in which an author or printer allegedly produced or distributed scandalous, offensive, abusive, insulting, seditious, or blasphemous books was cited for violating the Empire’s prohibition of libel. Libel was a useful instrument for moderating printed discourse because it was ambiguous: The law declined a normative definition. Obscuring the boundaries between legal and illegal discourse was fundamental for encouraging self-censorship. Although there was a vague sense of libel, derived from its essence in defamation, its contours and applicability were dubious because of its tremendous interpretative and generic range. As a defining characteristic for libel, malice was shrouded in ambiguity. Yet there was a significant problem. If there were no possibility for resolving libel’s manifest ambiguity, it would not have been actionable as a legal category. How could one prosecute a crime with no touchstone in reality?

The preferred means for resolving libel’s ambiguity consisted in its contextualization. The contexts in which a printed or spoken utterance occurred grounded that utterance in reality and made it an actionable offense. Libel was illegal because it menaced the public and religious peace.

Context defined the threat and made it “real,” so to speak, even if no violence or unrest materialized as a result. Recall Georg Zeämann’s sermon collection, New Mirror of Miracles. Had Zeämann vacantly mused on the cult of saints, miracles, and pilgrimages from the safety of a Lutheran echo chamber in Saxony, he might have avoided his ordeal. He instead directed his attack on Catholic beliefs and practices against a specific person, the long deceased but recently disinterred Elisabeth of 288

Reute, and propagated his remarks in a confessionally mixed area, where the risk of giving offense and causing conflict was greater. The context determined the threat, but also demonstrated malicious intention. The so-called Good Betha was, after all, an innocent and holy person, whose inclusion in Zeämann’s polemic was not only in poor taste but also spiteful, according to his accusers. The gravity of Thumm’s offense was also exacerbated by context, not only where his offensive text circulated, but also by when and to whom it was addressed. It was arguable that

Thumm, by encouraging Evangelicals to resist the religious policies of their sovereign lord in the

Well-Founded Christian Report had violated the non-interference bargain struck in the Religious Peace of Augsburg and would have been illegal any time after 1555. However, the immediate context multiplied the threat of his meddlesome treatise. Thumm had targeted Evangelical communities recently involved in the Bohemian Revolt against Emperor Ferdinand II. Contextualization thus made libel historical, grounding it in the moment, but also made it contingent. What was deemed libelous at one time, or in one place, may not have been so in another time or another place.

Libel was not a fixed category, but a constructed one. Contemporary observers decided what was libelous according to a variety of factors, not least their own subjective preferences and expectations. Owing to the Empire’s political organization, imperial authorities were accustomed to reliance on the imperial estates for upholding the Empire’s laws. There was good reason to suspect they would be cooperative. True, imperial censorship in this period had gotten off to a bad start with the Edict of Worms. Where the Edict had failed, however, the reorientation of censorship policies accompanying the Religious Peace had better potential for cooperation and compliance.

The problem with the Edict was that it was too specific, it had outlawed a fixed category – Luther’s works – for a contested reason – heresy. The Edict’s would-be enforcers militated against it because it did not mirror their expectations or accord with their (or their subjects’) preferences (i.e. for reform). Imperial censorship law under the Religious Peace took the opposite approach. It 289

outlawed a vague and contingent category – libel – for reasons none of the estates could deny – the preservation of peace and the avoidance of conflict. It was hard to disagree with a legal abstraction, since it could bend to meet expectations and preferences if pushed.

The Religious Peace had encouraged the opposing confessions to isolate themselves and pursue their own self-identities, encouraging them to be inward looking and heightening their subjectivity. This mutually exclusive subjectivity was the logical outcome of what Martin Heckel called “dissimulation,” which he identified as the heart of the Religious Peace. Instead of integrating the antagonistic confessions into a unified whole, the Religious Peace encouraged confessional isolation and self-determination, papering over differences with vague calls for peace and unity rather than settling scores and resolving disputes. Confessional identities became increasingly contrasting and oppositional. Consider the effect of subjectivity on enforcement. Imperial authorities encountered stiff opposition from Lutheran leaders when they arrested (or tried to arrest)

Theodor Thumm and Georg Zeämann. Catholic observers and officials had made a sound case against them, judging from the archival documents. The issue was that Thumm and Zeämann had offended the sensibilities of Catholic authorities by assailing their confessional identities, but had not offended the sensibilities of Evangelical authorities at the same time. In fact, their writings, respectively, were designed to stimulate and reinforce various aspects of the Evangelical identity.

Evangelical authorities were loath to punish Thumm and Zeämann, in other words, because they found the accusations of libel specious and persecutory.

What lessons for future research into early modern censorship can be gleaned from this study of imperial censorship? One of the most important historiographical points raised in this dissertation concerns censorship’s legacy. This has to do with the practice of censorship perhaps more so than the theory of censorship, which is important because theories of censorship have tended to obscure considerations of practice. There are modern biases against censorship that make 290

its legacy difficult to qualify. In the West, censorship has been regarded as an obstacle to be overcome and replaced by liberal democratic values. Like other outmoded remnants of pre- modernity – e.g. superstition, absolutism, and intolerance – censorship did not serve a useful (i.e. modernizing) purpose. The pride of place granted to freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and freedom of the press, in the canon of Western liberal democratic values is a testament to progress over the stultifying effects of censorship. To write a revisionist history of censorship that points to contributions made to the development of contemporary culture and values – i.e. to write of censorship's ostensible successes in the long term – would belie one’s commitment to progress, enlightenment, and modernity.

Censorship was not necessarily an unwanted imposition on the print trade, although at particular times and in discrete circumstances, it undoubtedly confronted certain bookmen with an unwanted intrusion. Yet the opposition between printing and censorship was not absolute.

Unsurprisingly, dismissiveness of the scholarly tradition vis-à-vis censorship still influences – sometimes unintentionally – what aspects of censorship are studied and in what ways they are studied. In that regard, the figure of the censor becomes a loathsome “other,” a reactionary whose purchase on literary culture was parasitic, derivative, and fraudulent. There persists a lingering idea that censors were myopic philistines and sycophantic bureaucrats, whose relationship with knowledge was inherently corrosive. John Milton noted in his 1644 treatise, Areopagitica,

There cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work…than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books…Seeing therefore those who now possess the employment…wish themselves well rid of it, and that no man of worth…is ever likely to succeed them…we may easily foresee what kind of licensers [i.e. censors] we are to expect hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary.600

600 Cited in J. M. Coetzee, Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 10. 291

The role of censor, in other words, was attractive to the unimaginative, to people ill suited to the creative work of poets, philosophers, and artists, and this idea can be traced to the late medieval and early modern periods.

Censors have received better attention in modern studies that challenge traditional notions of censorship. For instance, Creasman offers a much-needed revision of received wisdom on censorship, showing refreshing sensitivity to the importance of prevailing conditions in determining censorship’s success or failure in any given context. Urban censors, she rightfully notes, did more than review books; because printers were not typically organized into guilds, censors were also responsible for setting commercial standards and mediating disputes between squabbling printers.601

Printing was less self-regulated than other trades. Because it came relatively late, printing was not fully integrated into pre-existing guild systems, meaning that much regulation and enforcement came necessarily from outside the trade. In this and other ways, as Creasman mentions briefly, censorship served as a useful adjunct to the print trade, which may have otherwise struggled to establish its trustworthiness without censorial oversight.

Furthermore, Creasman makes a strong case for the reconsideration of how censors interacted with members of the print trade corresponding with her re-evaluation of censorship.

Censors were typically educated clergymen or otherwise from the upper social strata, meaning that they “shared the concerns and prejudices of the government that they served.”602 Institutional self- identification was important because, in the absence of other guidelines for how to distinguish legal from illegal books, official expectations filtered through the censors, thereby subjectivizing the

601 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 34.

602 Ibid.

292

censoring process by depending largely on “the values and priorities of the reviewer.”603 Because their positions were not usually lucrative, Creasman continues, censors attended to other business and therefore precipitated delays in the review process that created conflicts with bookmen eager to get their wares to market.604 Creasman’s two observations about censors in the Empire – the subjectivity of their practice and the delays they sometimes caused – suggest that, while there were occasions for conflict between censors and printers, this conflict did not necessarily erupt in response to objections about censorship per se.

It is puzzling, however, that actual censors make nary an appearance in the course of

Creasman’s book. At various points, she indicates that there is simply a dearth of information about specific censors. She prefaces her generalizations about censors with statements such as, “Although complete records of the office-holders are often lacking,” and “In those few instances where we can identify individual censors,” and “those censors known to us in this period,” which imply that there exists some information about individual censors available for a qualifying analysis but not enough for a more comprehensive assessment.605 In discussing the Imperial Book Commission in Frankfurt, for example, Creasman does not reference a single censor. The absence of analysis in this regard is not due to a scarcity of evidence; all of the commissioners for this period are known and accounted for in archival and secondary sources, as we have seen. The importance of knowing and understanding individual censors is vital for coming to terms with how censorship and book regulation unfolded in a given context. Without knowing about the lives and activities of censors, in other words, what can we know and say about patterns of censorship whatsoever?

603 Ibid.

604 Ibid., 34-35.

605 Ibid., 34.

293

The absence of individual censors from her analysis does not disqualify Creasman’s arguments. It does represent a missed opportunity to substantiate her generalizations about censors and advance her thesis about censorship’s fundamental reliance on context and cooperation. It demonstrates how doggedly traditional thinking about censorship – i.e. as a universally destructive force – adheres in studies that otherwise question the cogency of such thought. Part of the problem about the “scarcity of known censors” remark consists in the fact many censors are known, but might reside in a historiographical “blind-spot.” The notion of censorship as a career opportunity for uncreative functionaries keeps the creative world of authors, printers, and publishers at a safe distance from censors. The fact is that many figures known to history for their creative yields also worked as censors. For instance, as centers for reading and writing in the early modern world, universities attracted printers. Because university faculty often produced – or at least provided – the content to be printed, faculty members tended to work as censors for the colleagues’ work as part of their official university duties. This was true, perhaps most notably, of Martin Luther, who worked as a censor at the University of Wittenberg and was characteristically forthright about his belief in the necessity of submitting to censorship.606 There are numerous lower-profile yet significant examples of censors who were also authors, and authors who were also censors. Valentin Leucht, for instance, was an accomplished author and translator, whose work printers continued to produce into the second half of the seventeenth century. His example alone suggested that the worlds of authors and censors were not mutually exclusive. This indicates a greater seamlessness between authorship and censorship than previously argued, making it highly problematic to dismiss censorship instinctively as anathema to the modernizing cosmopolitanism of the print trade.

606 Ibid., 14.

294

There are also implications, more specifically, for studies of censorship and its legacy in the

Empire. As noted in the introduction, this dissertation makes no pretention to comprehensiveness about the theories and practice of censorship beyond the competencies and jurisdiction of imperial authorities. I have attempted to demonstrate how imperial censorship fit into censorship in the

Empire by looking at general censorship expectations, the pressures placed on local authorities by imperial censorship laws, and how well imperial authorities and local officials did (or did not) get along in discrete settings. It is worth exploring here, having now looked attentively upon imperial censorship at some length, why historians have offered so few systematic (rather than incidental) studies of imperial censorship. Why have there not been more studies, for instance, of the Imperial

Book Commission? Derived from the above discussion of modern biases against censorship, censorship in the Empire is even more derided for its failures, both moral and practical. There has been a long-standing tendency in German scholarship, which English-language scholarship had mostly followed, that has questioned the administrative efficacy of the Empire’s decentralized political organization and thereby dismissed its laws and institutions as ineffective. The Empire’s unique configuration permitted those responsible for the production and distribution of scurrilous materials to circumvent attempts to enforce censorship policies, thus draining imperial laws of their power. Simply put, authors, printers, publishers, and salesmen could abscond to a more agreeable territory or city when they faced local conditions unsuitable to the authorization, publication, or sale of their materials.607 This made the trade hard to regulate and rendered the absolute suppression of illicit printed works laborious to the point of impossibility. In a recent article published by Andrew

607 Lotz-Heumann and Pohlig, “Confessionalization and Literature,” 47. They observe, “All in all…the competition between the [Leipzig and Frankfurt] book fairs on the one hand and the political and religious plurality of the Empire on the other created the conditions for a highly diverse supply of books and made Imperial censorship powerless. Even if a lot more research is needed on censorship and the book market in early modern Germany, it is clear that multi- confessionalism created opportunities to publish books elsewhere and made it difficult, of not impossible, to control the flow of texts across borders.” 295

Pettegree and Matthew Hall on the distribution of printing centers in early modern European countries, they concluded that Luther’s movement succeeded, in part, because it emerged in

Germany, where strict enforcement of press censorship was not possible given the plurality of major printing centers dispersed throughout the Empire’s many, many jurisdictions.608 Hall and Pettegree have added additional nuance to something historians have long argued: Effective censorship was nigh impossible in the Empire.

It was true, as we saw with Thumm and Zeämann, and again in Leucht’s years-long struggle to extend the Commission’s influence over Frankfurt’s book trade at the expense of Frankfurt’s civic magistrates, that imperial authorities could not simply command obedience and then expect the estates to respond favorably and with alacrity. There was considerable negotiation. There had to be considering the weight of imperial expectations was counter-balanced by ambiguous legal prohibitions that were also contingent and subjective. Imperial censorship was complicated.

Eisenhardt was over-generous about the successes of imperial censorship policies. Creasman noted of his study that Eisenhardt emphasized, “the formulation of imperial censorship law within the

Diets and imperial courts and commissions charged with its administration” at the expense of assessing its enforcement.609 Eisenhardt’s exclusively structural analysis of imperial censorship did weaken his arguments about its effectiveness, but what the critique itself misses is that Eisenhardt

608 Pettegree and Hall, “The Reformation and the Book,” 791-800. Their statistical analysis of the 10,000 bibliographic items in the Index Aureliensis reveals that Germany had 92 printing centers to France’s 53 and England’s 6. The true significance of this is demonstrated when their analysis reveals that the largest printing center in terms of percentage of works produced in the period for France was Paris with 53% and for England was London with an overwhelming 97%. For Germany, on the other hand, the largest printing center was Cologne with only 13% of the total production. Speaking about England, they conclude, “This was not a difficult industry to control, partly because the printers all lived and worked cheek by jowl in one city, but also because none wanted to risk compromising their chance of official patronage. […] In fact, there was very little unauthorized printing in England [much was imported from abroad] at any point during the sixteenth century; the sort of explosion of popular demand that Germany witnessed in the 1520s would simply not have been possible.”

609 Creasman, Censorship and Civic Order, 16. 296

offered a corrective to the tendency of other scholars to evaluate success or failure in terms of the number of illegal books and pamphlets circulating openly on the Empire’s book market. Eisenhardt stressed that imperial censorship played an important role in confessional politics, and this was the measure of its legacy. Imperial censorship institutions like the Imperial Book Commission were not simply disregarded as toothless entities. Rather it commanded a great deal of respect from territorial lords, civic magistrates, and members of the book trade. The problem with Eisenhardt’s study, and one I have tried to remedy here without missing his overall point, was not so much that the thesis was wrong-headed, only that he did not sufficiently analyze the ways these institutions worked, leaving his argument in want of more tangible evidence. As we saw in the chapters above, there were no clear winners of losers. Censorship did not destroy the Empire’s book trade, and may have even contributed to it, providing organization and support that it sorely needed to bolster its credibility.

297

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